
Class ^^jJ-Ui -^- 
Book (^:_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



A Swfss Peasant 



SWITZERLAND 



PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE 



BY 

JOEL COOK 

AUTHOR OF "AMERICA : PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE 
•'ENGLAND: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE" 
•■ FRANCE : HISTORIC AND ROMANTIC 



ILLUSTRATED 



PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY T. COATES & CO. 

1904 



.C77 



LIBwa«?v «f r^ONGR^SS 

OCT 12 1904 
Oooyrfgrht Entry 

CLASS a XXo. No 

/ COPY B 



Copyright, 

EENEY T. COAXES & CO. 

1904c 



INTRODUCTION. 



During a very long period, Switzerland and the 
Alps have heen among the most beautiful regions 
sought by millions of tourists from all parts of the 
world. They display the greatest scenic attractions 
of Europe in their grandest form, and especially for 
American visitors have a special charm that is most 
seductive. In going or coming, the noble Ehine" the 
Great Eiver of the German Fatherland, is usually fol- 
lowed, up or down, and thus becomes a part of the 
popular Swiss tour. 

In the following pages there have been compiled, 
largely as the result of personal observation, much 
of the scenic description, history and romance of 
these charming regions, which have had such an im- 
portant share in European contentions and develop- 
ment in the past, as they now contribute so greatly 
to the pleasure of the army of the world's travellers. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. Western Switzerland 3 

II. Eastern Switzerland 83 

III. The Upper Ehine 161 

IV. The Middle Rhine and Main 245 

y. The Great Rhine Gorge . . » 315 

VI. The Lower Rhine 391 



LIST OF ILLURTEATI0I!^"S. 



PAGE 

A Swiss Peasant Frontispiece. 

Castle of Chillon 22 

Great St. Bernard Pass, Hospice, and Dogs .... 30 

Mont Blanc and Chamounix 34 

Tourists Crossing Mer de Glace 38 

Bern 52 

JUNGFRAU FROM VALLEY OF LAUTERBRUNNEN .... 62 

Matterhorn 76 

SPREUERBRifcKE AND OLD MiLL 102 

Lion of Lucerne 104 

Axenstrasse on Lake Lucerne 122 

Statue of William Tell 124 

Devil's Bridge— St. Gotthard Pass 126 

Gorge op the Tamina 170 

Rbeinfall at Schaffhausen 182 

Basle— The Spalen Thor 188 

Cottage in the Black Forest .196 

Strassburg— Tomb of Marshal Saxe ....... 206 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGS 

Baden-Baden— CoNVERSATiONSHAUS 212 

BiNGEN— Mouse Tower 306 

Rheinstein , , . . 318 . 

Bonn — Beethoven's House . 394 

Utrecht — On the Old Canal 440 

In Rotterdam ^ 450 

Delft— Near the Arsenal ,,,,,,,,.,. 456 



WESTERN SWITZERLAND, 



SWITZERLAND AND 
THE RHINE 

PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. 



I. 

WESTERN SWITZERLAND. 

The Swiss Confederation — The Lake of Geneva — The River 
Rhone — Lausanne — Ouchy — Morges — Rolle — 
Nyon — Coppet — Geneva — Thonon — Ripaille — Ve- 
vey — St. Gengolph — Clarens — Montreux — Castle of 
Chillon — Bex — St. Maurice — The Pissevache Cascade 

— Dent de Morcles — Dent du Midi — Gorge of the 
Trient — Martigny — The Alps and Their Passes — The 
Great St. Bernard — Bourg St. Pierre — Aosta — La 
Forclaz — The Tete Noire — Chamounix — The FlegSre 
— ^Mer de Glace — Mont Blanc — The Observatory — Moun- 
tain Climbing — The River Aar — Freiburg — Morat — 
Lake Neuchatel — Marin — Neuchatel — Cheux de 
Fonds — Le Locle — Motiers — Bienne — Soleure — 
Aarburg — Aarau — Hapsburg — Brugg — Konigsfel- 
den — Vindonissa — The Weissenstein — Bern — Lake 
Thun — Strattligen — Spiez — Interlaken — The Liit- 
schine — Lauterbrunnen — The Staubbach — Miirren — 
The Jungfrau — The Monch — The Eiger — The Wetter- 
horn — The Schreckhorn — The Finsteraarhorn — Grin- 
delwald — The Faulhorn — The Gemmi Pass — The 
Dala — Leuk — The Upper Rhone — Sion — The Visp 

— Zermatt — The Riffelberg — The Pennine Alps — The 
Corner Grat — Monte Rosa — The Lyskamm — The 
Breithorn — The Matterhorn — The Dent Blanche — 
The Weisshorn — The Dona — The Tashhorn — Ascent 
of the Matterhorn. 

3 



S\Y1TZERLAND. 



THE SWISS CONFEDERATION. 

The scenic beauties of Europe are conceded as cul- 
minating in Switzerland. The Alps have been 
praised and admired by all peoples in all ages. 
Goethe in his Apostrophe to the Swiss Alps says: 

"Yesterday brown was still thy head, as the locks of my 
loved one, 
Whose sweet image so dear silently beckons afar. 
Silver grey is the early snow to-day on thy summit, 

Through the tempestuous night streaming fast over thy 
brow." 

Longfellow in Hyperion says that "Earth has built 
the great watchtowers of the mountains, and they 
lift their heads far up into the sky, and gaze ever 
upward and around to see if the Judge of the World 
comes not!" 

This famous land of the Swiss has always been the 
home of a race of sturdy and independent mountain- 
eers. It is an ancient country, whose origin is 
shrouded in mystery. The belief is that the Rhseti 
were its original people, driven from the lowlands to 
the mountains by the Celtic tribes of the Helvetii, 
and both races being conquered by the Eomans just 
before the Christian era. The first good military 
roads in the Alps were of Roman construction, and 
they also originated many of the noted towns. They 
were followed by various barbarians, and Huns, Bur- 



THE SWISS CONFEDERATION. 5 

gundians, Allcmanni niul Coilis in turn occupied 
different portions oi" Helvetia. 'Vhvn the Franks 
came and the Germans, and the Austrians of the 
house of Hapsburijf. liesisting the oppressions of tlie 
hitter, there followed a gradual emancipation, and 
beginning in the thirteenth century, one canton after 
another became independent, and thus the Swiss 
Confederation began, to this period being ascribed 
the romantic tradition of William Tell. For a long 
time, the Swiss were engaged in defensive wars to 
maintain their independence, and in the religious 
conllicts, a large portion of the population embraced 
the cause of the Reformation. During the French 
Revolution, the armies of that nation overran the 
country. Napoleon controlled it, and finally, after 
serious troubles, in September, 1818, the present 
Federal Constitution was put into operation, and the 
Swiss Confederation has since subsisted in prosperity 
and tranquility. There are twenty-two cantons hav- 
ing a population of about 3,320,000, and covering 
nearly sixteen thousand square miles, about two- 
thirds of the surface being classed as "productive." 
The people, however, would fare sparsely if they de- 
pended on the soil for a livelihood. Their main living 
comes from the constant stream of visitors, the world 
paying tribute for the enjoyment of the Swiss scenic 
attractions. An American consular report from 
G-eneva not long ago estimated that 2,500,000 tour- 
ists come to Switzerland in a year, and each one ex- 
pends in this favore.d country an average of $80. 



G SWITZERLAND. 

In its topography Switzerland has been well de- 
scribed as two deep trenches traversed by two great 
rivers, enclosed by two huge and almost parallel 
mountain masses; and having the "Plains of Switzer- 
land'^ to the northward, comprising chiefl}^, the ex- 
tensive valley of the river Aar. Over three-fifths of 
the whole territory is drained by the Ehine and its 
aflflnents, and another fifth by the Ehone. To the 
southward of the deep trenches, is the main Alpine 
range, and to the northward, enclosing them, is the 
parallel, outlying range of the Bernese Oberland, its 
highest peak being the Finsteraarhorn, rising over 
fourteen thousand feet. The Aar valley, spreading 
farther to the northward, is undulating, and at times 
rugged, its average elevation above sea-level being 
about fourteen hundred feet. 

THE LAKE OE GENEVA. 

We will enter Switzerland from France by the 
route over the Jura mountains, which makes prob- 
ably the most impressive scenic approach. This rail- 
way crosses from Pontarlier almost southward to 
Lausanne, on the Lake of Geneva, the descent upon 
the Swiss side giving, in its many windings, magnifi- 
cent glimpses of the distant Alps, spread out beyond 
the lake, and seen in the grandest array, all along the 
horizon from the Jungfrau to Mont Blanc. The 
situation of Lausanne, on the terraced slopes of Mont 
Joret, five hundred feet above the level of the lake, is 



THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 7 

superb. There are many places of outlook over this 
grand landscape of lake and mountains, but the best 
is from the Signal, three miles back of Lausanne, at 
over twenty-one hundred feet elevation, up to which 
an inclined-plane cable railway leads. Mont Blanc, 
however, is not here fully visible, being concealed by 
a jutting shoulder of a nearer mountain. The great 
lake of Geneva spreads in a grand crescent, far away 
both east and west, and in the view, chiefly impress- 
ive, is the sharp contrast between its two shores. 
On the northern side, the hills and pastures have the 
richest verdure, and dotted with luxuriant woods, 
they stretch far back to the dark forest clad ridges of 
the Jura. From Lausanne to the eastern head of the 
lake, the lower surfaces present a continuous suc- 
cession of vineyards and orchards, varied by hamlets 
and delightful villas. On the opposite southern shore 
of Savoy, however, the contrast is marked. The land 
rises rapidly from the foothills into frowning moun- 
tains, with their bleak northern slopes toward us, 
acting as a barrier against the sun's rays, which do 
not nourish them, but pour all their warmth upon 
the northern shore. 

This noble lake was the Lacus Lemanus of the 
Eomans and became the Lac Leman of modern times. 
It is among the most famous in the world and has 
been a favorite theme of the poets and authors of all 
nations. It is forty-five miles long, about eight miles 
across in the centre, and gradually narrows toward 
each end. Its color is a deep blue, thus differing 



8 SWITZERLAND. 

from the greenish hue of most other Swiss lakes. 
The greatest depth, which is in front of Lausanne, 
is about one thousand feet. One of its peculiarities 
is the tidal change more or less observed in all the 
Swiss lakes, and here very marked. These changes in 
the level are called "seiches/^ and they come from 
alterations in the atmospheric pressure on different 
parts of the lake, the highest recorded being over six 
feet, and the tidal wave sometimes crossing the lake 
in ten minutes. 

The river Ehone collects the waters of the higher 
Alps, the meltings of the glaciers in a course of one 
hundred and fifty miles and is the fountain head of 
this noted lake. These glaciers come down the fur- 
rows and ravines in the mountain sides, and at the 
tops they are accumulations of snow. At first the 
snow is soft and ductile, and then as it slides down 
the fissure and is jostled and restrained by the bor- 
dering barriers of rocks, the glacier becomes more 
compact and icy, and with slow progress, cracking 
and groaning gradually changes to a river of ice. 
During all the time, it wastes by melting, the water 
going to the bottom, but the snows at the upper end 
constantly renew it. All sorts of spoil are carried 
along, stones, timber, mud and debris, and finally, 
beyond the point of greatest dimension, the waste 
predominates over the supply, the glacier shrinks, 
the spoil sinks to the bottom, and the ice is gradu- 
ally resolved into water. From the dirty, shrivelled 
and wrinkled end of the glacier, starts the torrent- 



THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 9 

stream, merrily bounding down the mountain-side 
over waterfalls, through gorges and sometimes cav- 
erns, carrying with it mud, stones and all sorts of 
detritus. 

Thus begin the Alpine streams which go out from 
that great mountain range to feed all the seas sur- 
rounding Europe. Such torrents by the score unite 
to form the river Ehone, which flows a rapid current 
down past Martigny and Bex and enters the lake 
near Bouveret. Above that entrance the Ehone is 
chiefly conspicuous for its dirty character, and the 
mud and stones it bears, all of which it pours into the 
lake to be purified as the water passes through. 
Thus the Lake of Geneva is practically the filter of 
the river Rhone, which is gradually filling it up. 
Already in the course of ages it has filled ten or 
twelve miles of the head of the lake from Bex to Bou- 
veret, and the process goes steadily on, the dirt and 
spoil brought in gradually sinking to the bottom, as 
the broadening channel checks the river current. In 
fact during the glacial period, this lake and the 
whole valley of the Rhone, were filled by a huge con- 
tinuous glacier mounting several hundred feet above 
the present level. Masses of granite rocks weighing 
thousands of tons have been brought down by the 
ice flow from the distant ranges of the Pennine Alps, 
and deposited upon the limestone formation of the 
Jura mountains beyond Geneva. 

This noble lake begins among towering snow-cov- 
ered mountains at its eastern head, and the shores 



10 SWITZERLAND. 

gradually subside to tamer scenery at the western 
end. The surface of the lake is more than twelve 
hundred feet above the sea level. The snow-capped 
Alps border the whole southern bank, but as Geneva 
is approached, the higher range gradually retires 
southward, leaving only modest hills, three thousand 
feet high near the shore. Over beyond the head of 
the lake and to the southward are the Dent de Hor- 
des and the Dent du Midi with its triple crown, their 
snow-capped peaks rising on high, and each appear- 
ing like a large tooth, whence the name. Farther 
south, like a recumbent long-backed white elephant, 
rises Mont Blanc fifteen thousand, seven hundred and 
eighty-two feet, the highest mountain in Europe. 
From one end of the lake to the other, Mont Blanc 
is its southern sentinel, for as the water crescent 
curves, the mountain is almost equi-distant from all 
parts. Its great long side stands up like a snow- 
covered wall, the length rather interfering with a 
proper appreciation of the height. The national 
boundary is through the centre of the lake. Savoy in 
France being on the southern shore, while the Swiss 
Canton of Vaud is on the northern side, extending 
around the head of the lake, and Canton Valais has 
a narrow front on the southern side, at the eastern 
end. 

LAUSANNE TO GENEVA. 

Lausanne, the capital of Yaud, was the Eoman 
Lausonium and its commanding situation terraced 



lAUSAXXE TO GENEVA. H 

on the liill-side sloping down toward the lake is em- 
phasized by a ravine^ having on the heights adjacent 
the old castle and cathedral. An elevated bridge 
crosses this ravine to unite the two parts of the town, 
and a street passing the cathedral goes through a 
tunnel under the castle, all this adding to the pic- 
turesque scenery. The Cathedral built in the thir- 
teenth century was consecrated in the presence of 
Eudolph of Hapsburg, in 1275, by Pope Gregory X., 
a massive Gothic edifice standing upon a high terrace 
up to which a winding street and long stone staircase 
lead. The church is over three hundred and fifty 
feet long, and from its center rises a slender tower 
two hundred and ten feet high. It was in this church 
the noted religious disputation took place in 1536, 
in which Calvin participated, resulting in the separa- 
tion of Yaud from the Eoman Catholic church and 
the overthrow of the supremacy of Savoy in Switzer- 
land. Among the fine modern structures in Lau- 
sanne is the Tribunal-Federal, the Supreme Court of 
Appeal of the Swiss Confederation, and there are 
also interesting Museums. At the Hotel Gibbon, are 
still seen the remains of Gibbon^s house and garden. 
Here Yoltaire often wTote, and Gibbon composed 
most of his noted history, Tlie Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire. Gibbon has recorded, "It 
was on the day, or rather the night of the 27th of 
June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, 
that I wrote the last line of the last page in a sum- 
mer house in my garden.^' Voltaire long lived in 



12 SWITZERLAND. 

his chateau of Ferney near Geneva, and Byron thus 
sings of both in Cliilde Harold: 

"Lausanne! and Ferney! Ye have been the abodes 
Of names which unto you bequeathed a name; 
Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, 
A path to perpetuity of fame!" 

From its height on the hill, Lausanne looks down 
upon its little port of Ouchy on the lake shore, and 
people descend there by a cable railway. Here in the 
old house of the Ancre Hotel, Byron was detained 
by bad weather in June, 1817, for two days, and wrote 
his noted poem of the Prisoner of Chillon. 

From Lausanne, westward toward Geneva, the bank 
of the lake is rather flat, as the mountain scenery 
becomes tamer. The pleasant watering place of Mor- 
ges borders a broad bay, and beyond is Eolle, where 
the Eussian General la Harpe was born in 1754, an 
obelisk in his memory being erected on an islet in the 
lake. Behind rises the Signal de Bougy, over twenty- 
three hundred feet high, a famous point of superb 
outlook over the water to the mountains. The lake 
narrows beyond, and here is the ancient castle of 
Nyon, with high towers and thick walls, now a public 
museum of antiquities, there being many Eoman 
relics, as it was their colony of Xoviodunum founded 
by Julius Caesar. The Chateau of Prangins, once a 
Bonaparte residence, is in the outskirts. The Dole 
the highest peak of the Swiss Juras, is a short dis- 
tance inland, its summit elevated fifty-five hundred 



GENEVA. 13 

feet, from which there is a splendid view, including a 
majestic display of Mont Blanc. Then we come to 
Cappet, where lived the noted Genevan IsTecker, who 
was the Finance Minister of Louis XVI., and when 
the French Eevolution began, went into exile here. 
His daughter, the celebrated Madame de Stael, held 
her intellectual court at Coppet, dying in 1817, and 
her portrait by David, painted to represent Sappho, 
hangs on the walls. As the lake narrows toward its 
outlet, the shores are lined with villages and pleas- 
ant villas, among them Ferney, where Voltaire lived 
for two years. Then Lake Leman terminates at the 
city of Geneva, situated in one of the most superb 
locations, of which Byron thus writes in Childe Har- 
old : 

"Is it not better, then, to be alone. 

And love Earth only for its earthly sake? 
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 
Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake." 

GENEVA. 

The situation of Geneva is indeed magnificent. It 
is built on the hillsides bordering the termination of 
the lake and the Ehone valley, the swift current of 
that beautiful stream rushing out of the lake and 
under a series of bridges as it traverses the city. Ow- 
ing to the copious drainage of the bordering moun- 
tains, the Ehone takes out of Lake Leman three times 
the volume of water which it has brought in, the cur- 



14 SWITZERLAND. 

rent being clear as crystal and its color the pro- 
f oundest blue. The stream only goes along a little way, 
however, when the rushing Arve comes in from the 
southward, bringing down the mud and debris of all 
the torrents and glaciers on the northern side of 
Mont Blanc. The blue stream and the muddy cur- 
rent flow separately alongside each other for several 
hundred yards, but the latter soon gains the vic- 
tory. Just at the exit of the lake is the pretty He 
Eousseau in midstream, with flocks of swans and 
ducks gliding about on the smooth waters. To the 
westward is the long Quai du Montblanc fronting the 
city on that side, giving a magnificent outlook upon 
Mont Blanc and its attendant galaxy of peaks or 
^^aiguilles" as they are named. The Pont du Mont- 
blanc crosses the river at the mouth of the lake and 
from it the handsome Eue du Montblanc leads up 
through the city on the western side, where are the 
newer. portions. The older town is on the eastern 
side, fronted by a spacious park, known as the Prom- 
enade du Lac, with handsome Quais beyond. Upon 
the He Rousseau is a bronze statue of Jean Jacques 
Rousseau, this having been one of his favorite re- 
sorts. He was the son of a Genevan watchmaker, 
born in 1712. Adjoining the Quai du Montblanc, 
and in full view from all parts of the lake front, is 
the splendid monument recently erected to Duke 
Charles of Brunswick, who died in 1873, and be- 
queathed his estate of $4,000,000 to Geneva. H 
rises about seventy feet from a spacious platform, and 



GENEVA. 15 

is a marble canopy in three stories, over a sarcopha- 
gus bearing the recumbent figure of the Duke. Co- 
lossal lions guard it and there are rich ornaments, 
including statues of the most noted ancestors of the 
Brunswick house. The bronze equestrian statue of 
Charles originally stood on the top, but proving too 
heavy had to be taken down. The development of 
utilitarian ideas in this scene of magnificence has 
placed along the lake front at the water's edge on 
both sides, the public wash-houses, and here the laun- 
dry-work of the city is largely conducted, the washer- 
women doing their duty in the little floating sheds 
with vigor and completely unmindful of the gorgeous 
scene around them. 

This beautiful place was occupied by a settlement 
long ago, but nobody knows when the colony began. 
Csesar found here a town of the Allobroges that he 
called Geneva, and the surrounding region was made 
a Eoman province, which, upon the downfall of the 
Empire, became in the fifth century part of the first 
kingdom of Burgundy, of which Geneva was made the 
capital. Then the Franks controlled it, and at the 
close of the ninth century it was included in the new 
Burgundian kingdom. This fell to Germany and in 
1034, the Emperor Conrad II. came to Geneva and 
was crowned King of Burgundy. The city was under 
various rulers afterward, and thus acquired many 
privileges, and in the early sixteenth century was in 
confederation with Freiburg and Bern, against the 
encroachments of the Duke, of Savoy, who had pre- 



16 SWITZERLAND. 

viously controlled all the territory around the lake. 
Thus arose two parties in Geneva, the Mamelukes, 
who were partisans of Savoy, and the Confederates, 
representing the Swiss combination. The name of 
the latter was Eidgenossen, and the French pro- 
nounced it Higuenos, whence was derived the name 
of Huguenots, so well known in the subsequent relig- 
ious wars. The great Eeformation had begun and 
Geneva espoused it, against the Catholic House of Sa- 
voy. The bishop finding the place too warm for him 
transferred his see in 1535 to Gex, north of the lake, 
and in 1536, the famous theologian, John Calvin, first 
appeared in Geneva, having been driven out of Paris. 
He was a native of Noyon, who had espoused the new 
religious belief, and had gone to the French capital, 
but found it necessary to seek an asylum abroad. 
He attached himself to the new party, and soon be- 
came the head of power in Geneva, ruling with ec- 
clesiastical rigor, until his death, in 1564. He 
founded the Geneva Academy which became in those 
days the leading school of Protestant theology, and 
his doctrines have been firmly maintained in Geneva 
to the present time. John Knox visited Geneva when 
exiled from Britain. Savoy made many abortive at- 
tempts to recover the town, and it was strongly for- 
tified for the defence. 

In the eighteenth century there were dissensions 
due to the differences between the poorer classes and 
the aristocracy, and a pronounced revolutionary 
spirit, and at that time both Voltaire and Eousseau 



GENEVA. 17 

appeared. Eousseau espoused the cause of the work- 
ing people, and at the instigation of Voltaire and the 
University of Paris, he was denounced and in 1763 
his works were publicly burnt by the hangman upon 
the order of the civic magistrates who were controlled 
by the opposite party. After the French Eevolution, 
Geneva was the capital of a French Department, but 
in 1814, it became a Canton of the Swiss Confedera- 
tion, its small territory enclosing the outlet of the 
lake. It has been since 1847 practically a republic 
with a written constitution. The population ex- 
ceeds one hundred thousand, and is steadily growing, 
and the chief industries are the manufacture of 
watches and musical boxes, there being most ingen- 
ious adaptations of mechanisms in all sorts of ways 
in both of these trades. Out in the lake in front of 
the city there is a relic of the glacial period, in two 
huge granite rocks that have been dropped in the 
water in past ages, one of which, the Pierre a Xiton, 
tradition describes as having been a Eoman altar to 
Neptune. A long pier stretching into the lake be- 
yond, as a sort of breakwater, has on its end a foun- 
tain, casting a jet over one hundred feet high. 

The chief elevation in the older town is crowned 
by the Cathedral, which Emperor Conrad II. com- 
pleted in the eleventh century, though it has since 
seen many changes. In it is kept the chair of Cal- 
vin, and its finest monument is that of Duke Henri 
de Rohan, the leader of the French Protestants, who 
was killed in 1638. The Hotel de Ville is near by, 



18 SWITZERLAND. 

being approached by an inclined plane, upon which 
the councillors in old times were conveyed in their 
chairs into and out of the building. It is historical 
as the place of meeting of the famous Alabama 
Claims Commission in 1872, which ended the dis- 
putes about the Anglo-Confederate privateers by 
England assuming the obligation and agreeing to the 
award of $15,500,000 damages in favor of the United 
States. In the Grand Eue adjoining is the house 
where Eousseau was born. The Arsenal near by con- 
tains a museum, where, among other relics^ are kept 
the ladders used in the Escalade. This was the last 
attempt by the Duke of Savoy to regain possession of 
the city and it was almost successful. Down in the 
lower town a fountain commemorates the attempt, 
and the day when the Savoyards were repulsed in 
1602, December 12, is still observed as a public holi- 
day. The Geneva University has fine modern build- 
ings and a large library, with many portraits of dis- 
tinguished Genevans, and relics of the Eeformation. 
Among these is a Bible originally intended to be pre- 
sented to Henri IV., but as he abjured Protestantism, 
this was never done. The book was printed in 
French at Geneva in 1588. There are other Museums 
and Galleries, one of the best being the Musee Eath, 
an art collection founded by the Eussian General 
Eath, who was a Genevan and presented' it to his 
native city. All around Geneva are pleasant suburbs 
displaying magnificent scenery, and filled with fine 
villas and attractive resorts. 



GENEVA. 19 

With a rapid current of the most delicious blue the 
river Ehone flows swiftly out of the lake. An island, 
covered with buildings formerly divided it into two 
channels, but the plan not long ago was executed of 
availing of the splendid water-power thus running to 
waste, and the right arm is now used for the flow of 
the river, and the left arm is an industrial canal. 
Each of these arms was successively emptied of water, 
excavated, and made of uniform width and depth, 
and a complete sewerage system was constructed. In 
the progress of this work, one side was emptied and 
arranged while the water was confined to the other, 
and the novelty was such that when each was nearly 
dry, the population flocked into the river bed to see 
the curious sight, and various elaborate civic banquets 
were spread there. At the same time, jetties were ar- 
ranged to maintain the waters of the lake at an uni- 
form level, thus preventing overflows of the banks. 
The Ehone, just below, receives the Arve, and flows 
away into France past the great fortress of Ecluze 
in the deep gorge between the Juras and the outliers 
of the Alps. 

These latter mountains press closely upon the 
southern bank of the lake and a short distance north- 
east of the outlet is the little brook Hermance, which 
makes the boundary between the Swiss Canton of 
Geneva and the French province of Savoy. Beyond, 
the lake expands to its greatest width, more than 
eight miles over toward Rolle and Morges, while about 
twenty-two miles from Geneva in a picturesque situ- 



20 SWITZERLAND. 

ation rising in terraces from the shore, is the ancient 
capital of the province of Chablais, now the attractive 
bathing-town of Thonon. Here, on the hill was the 
palace of the Dukes of Savoy, captured and destroyed 
by the Bernese in 1536, and on its eastern verge the 
lovely little river Drance of Chablais whirls down, a 
mountain-torrent out of the Alps and rushes out to 
the lake. Upon the promontory to the northward is 
the ancient Chateau of Eipaille overlooking the lake. 
Victor Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, succeeded to that 
title in 1391, as Count of Savoy, it being advanced 
to a Dukedom by Emperor Sigmund of Germany in 
1416. In 1434, tiring of the affairs of government, 
Amadeus abandoned his Duchy and retired to Ei- 
paille, where he had constructed a combined castle 
and monastery, and he lived so luxuriantly that 
faire Ripaille became a French saying signifying to 
make good cheer. He built here an establishment 
housing a thousand monks, and behind the seven 
towers of the extensive pile, there stretched the ter- 
raced hills where grew the famous Chablais wines. 
While this construction was going on and his fame 
grew, there came a schism in the Catholic Church and 
one of the factions, at the Council of Basle, although 
he had never received holy orders, elected Amadeus, 
the Pope, and he went to Basle and was crowned as 
Felix V. The schism grew, but he held on for several 
years, his rights being contested, and he finally re- 
signed in 1449, under an arrangement by which va- 
rious dignities were reserved to him, among them be- 



VEVEY TO MONTREUX. 21 

ing that he need not go to Eome to attend any Gen- 
eral Council of the Church, that the Pope should rise 
to receive him, and permit Amadeus to kiss his cheek, 
instead of his foot. It is related of this luxurious 
aristocrat hy one of his biographers who defends the 
austerity of his character, that "the most excellent 
Duke wore no garments save those necessary to pre- 
serve his body from cold; he ate nothing but that 
which kept him from starving/^ The monastery con- 
tinued until the French Revolution, when it was closed 
and the monks were dispersed. There has recently 
been a partial restoration of the buildings. 

VEVEY TO MONTREUX. 

Returning to Lausanne, and proceeding along the 
northern lake shore eastward, not far away is the 
deep ravine through which rushes out the lively Ve- 
veyse, and here is picturesque Yevey, with a beautiful 
outlook upon the semicircular head of the lake, the 
upper Rhone valley and the high Alps beyond. Over 
these rise the Mont Catogne, the "sugar loaf," the 
mountains of the Great St. Bernard, and various 
others; while on a promontory on the opposite shore 
of the lake is St. Gengolph, a settlement having the 
peculiarity of being one-half in the Swiss Canton Va- 
lais, and the other half in French Savoy, the national 
boundary near this upper end of the lake being the 
gorge of the little river Morge, coming out through 
the village. Vevey was the Roman Vibiscus, and it 



22 SWITZERLAND. 

has, in late years, developed into a popular resort for 
invalids. It was here that Rousseau laid the scene of 
his noted romance Nouvelle Heloise, written in 1761. 
In the ancient Church of St. Martin, outside the town 
on an eminence, are buried two of the English regi- 
cides, Ludlow and Broughton, the latter having read 
the death sentence to Charles I. They sought refuge 
here, and when Charles II. demanded their surren- 
der, the Swiss government refused. On the lake 
shore, three miles eastward is Clarens, immortalized 
by Eousseau, but his Bosquet long ago disappeared, 
though a grove of chestnuts is maintained there, 
called the Bosquet de Julie. Clarens with half a 
score of other villages scattered about on shore and 
hill are collectively called Montreux^ the name of the 
parish, and they are all popular resorts. The quaint 
old Church of Montreux, from its shady terrace high 
above the village of Les Planches has a magnificent 
view, and here is remembered by a bust on the ter- 
race the noted Dean Bridel, for almost a half-cen- 
tury its pastor. All along the picturesque shores of 
the lake are ravines, and the background of high 
hills into which they are deeply carved is full of 
routes for pleasant excursions. 

THE CASTLE OF CHILLOX. 

At the eastern verge of Montreux, in front of Yey- 
teux, upon an isolated rock out in the lake, and about 
seventy feet from the shore, rise the massive walls 



Castle of Chillon. 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON. 23 

and p3^ramidal and conical-topped towers of the for- 
bidding Castle of Chillon. Over the entrance are the 
arms of the Canton of Vand, and the Swiss govern- 
ment has made it a public museum. A quaint bridge 
crosses the narrow strait separating it from the shore. 
When this castle was originally built or by whom, no 
one seems to know. There is a tradition that in 
830, King Louis le Debonnaire, imprisoned the Abbot 
Wala who had instigated his sons to rebellion "in a 
castle from which only the sky, the Alps, and Lac 
Leman, were visible," and this is believed to have 
been Chillon. It subsequently was part of Savoy, and 
there is a good deal of dispute about it, but there 
were constructions here in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries and Count Peter of Savoy, who improved 
and fortified it in the latter century, left it much as 
it now appears. The Counts of Savoy, when they 
held Yaud, often resided in the castle, and they con- 
verted it into a state prison. It was this reputation 
surrounding the place that inspired Lord Byron's 
poem, Tlie Prisoner of Chillon, which has given the 
old castle its modern fame. Byron came along dur- 
ing his wanderings through Europe in gloomy mood, 
having just separated from Lady Byron, and as he 
said, "left England forever." This and the bad 
w^eather, detaining him at Ouchy, the port of Lau- 
sanne, in June, 1817, inspired the poem, but when 
Byron wrote it, he had not heard of Bonnivard, who 
was the most noted prisoner of Chillon, confined there 
for six years, from 1530 to 1536. After the poem had 



24 SWITZERLAND. 

acquired fame, he heard of Bonnivard and made 
amends in a sonnet : 

"Chillon! thy prison is a holy place, 

And thy sad floor an altar; for 'twas trod. 
Until his very steps have left a trace. 

Worn, as if the cold pavement were a sod. 

By Bonnivard! — may none those marks efface! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God!" 

Francis Bonnivard was the Prior of St. Victor, 
near Geneva, and the Duke of Savoy having attacked 
the republic, Bonnivard espoused its cause. The 
Duke captured him and for ten years he was in prison 
elsewhere, but was liberated in 1528. Knowing his 
hostility, the Duke captured him again in 1530 and 
he was then imprisoned in Chillon. The Genevans 
stormed the castle in 1536, overthrew the power of 
Savoy, and liberated Bonnivard, who went to Geneva 
and lived a quiet life until his death, twenty-four 
years afterward. It was said that he was twice mar- 
ried and was a highly respected citizen. No place 
has more doleful legends than Chillon. The "po- 
tence,^' bleak with age, is shown, where the prisoners 
were hung; there is a hole in the wall whence their 
bodies were cast into the lake ; a torture chamber, with 
a wooden pillar to which they were fastened, and 
seared by hot irons; an "oubliette,^^ having a trap 
door shutting out the light, beneath which were three 
steps downward, but no fourth step, and the victim 
fell eighty feet upon sharp knives. Such is ancient 
and forbidding Chillon. 



ST. MAURICE AND MARTIGNY. 25 



ST. MAURICE AND MARTIGNY. 

The upper valley of the Ehone above the lake is 
at first wide and somewhat marshy, being composed 
of the river deposits, and is bordered by high moun- 
tains. At Bex are hydropathic establishments, and a 
short distance beyond is St. Maurice, the chief town 
of the valley, and a leading community of the Can- 
ton Valais. It is a picturesque old place with narrow 
and winding streets, squeezed in between the rushing 
torrent of the Ehone and the cliffs. This was the 
Eoman Agaunum, and here came St. Maurice in the 
early fourth century to preach Christianity and suf- 
fer martyrdom. St. Maurice led here the "Thebain 
Legion" recruited in the Thebaid, and because they 
would not renounce Christianity, they were all mas- 
sacred. Thus perished over six thousand, including 
Saints Maurice, Candidus and Victor, the story mak- 
ing a dismal page in the Martyrology. They were 
part of Emperor Maximin's army invading Gaul. St. 
Maurice was born in Austria, and is the patron saint 
of that country, being also regarded as the special 
protector of foot soldiers. St. Theodore founded the 
old Abbey of St. Maurice at the close of the fourth 
century, and it still exists, the abode of some Augus- 
tinian monks. Among its treasures are the chalice of 
Queen Bertha of Swabia, wife of Eudolph II., dat- 
ing from the tenth century, and a richly illuminated 



26 SWITZERLAND. 

manuscript of the gospels presented by Charlemagne. 
It is said to be the oldest abbey in Switzerland. 

Farther on, the Salanfe river comes down out of 
the Alps through a deep gorge, and falls over a high 
ledge of rocks in the beautiful Pissevache cascade and 
then rushes to the Rhone. This waterfall is over two 
hundred feet high, and in the spring time when the 
snows are melting the display is most beautiful. All 
around St. Maurice are high mountains, two of the 
highest guarding the valley, the Dent de Morcles ris- 
ing nearly ninety-eight hundred feet on the eastern 
side, and the massive Dent du Midi to the westward, 
its summit elevated ten thousand, seven hundred feet. 
In this Italian end of Switzerland, all these peaks are 
"dents" or teeth, which they very much resemble, 
while over in Savoy they are called "aguilles'^ or 
needles, from their sharp points, and in the German 
section they are generally known as "horns." Thus 
the name originally was given from their appearance. 
Just above is the deeply cut Gorge of the Trient, flow- 
ing in from the westward, the chasm looking like a 
huge vaulted cavern, very high and narrow, and ap- 
pearing much as if it had been cut down by some 
Titan with a blow from an axe. All about houses cling 
to the rocks on the mountain sides, the pretty little 
Swiss chalets, with projecting roofs, held down by 
stones to keep the winds from blowing them away. 
Here and there are little patches of soil, with people 
cultivating them, and goats with tinkling bells wan- 
der at will in almost inaccessible places. 



ST. MAURICE AND MARTIGNY. 27 

Deep dowu at a sharp angle made by this pictur- 
esque Ehone valley, is Martign}^, the starting point 
for various routes over the Alps, doing now very 
much as in the Eoman days, when it was their sta- 
tion of Octodurum. Its tree-shaded market place dis- 
plays a bronze bust of Helvetia; and the vineyards of 
the neighborhood yield the noted wines of Coquempey 
and Lamarque which were popular in the Eoman 
times, as now. High, snow-covered mountains are all 
around, and ponderous cliffs and terrific gorges bor- 
der the fiat-floored and highly cultivated, narrow val- 
ley, through which swiftly flows the muddy torrent of 
the Ehone. Up on the hillside above the town is the 
ancient Castle of La Batiaz, built by Peter of Sa- 
voy in the thirteenth century for the Bishops of Sion, 
and from its dark gray round tower, there is a fine 
view along the three deep and narrow gorges which 
converge at Martigny. The first stretching off to- 
ward the northeast, is where the Ehone comes down 
out of the high Alps around its sources in the St. 
Gotthard, and then turning a sharp angle to the north- 
west at Martigny, it rushes off past St. Maurice 
through the second gorge to Lake Leman. The third 
gorge is La Forclaz, toward the southwest, and out 
that way is the '^Mauvais Pas^^ over the Tete N"oire, 
to Chamounix and Mont Blanc, one of the most re- 
markable mountain passes in this region. From the 
centre of Martigny two famous roads diverge that 
scale the Alps to Italy. A little monument marks 
their starting point, bearing upon one side the name 



28 SWITZERLAND. 

of "Simplon/' pointing up the Ehone valley; and 
upon the other "St. Bernard/'^ which leads south- 
ward up the Drance. Both are magnificent roads, ex- 
hibiting great feats of engineering. 

THE ALPS AND THEIR PASSES. 

The famous road over the Great St. Bernard, is 
constructed up the deeply cut ravine of the Drance 
of Valais, from the Ehone at Martigny to Orsieres, 
and thence over the mountains to Aosta, in Italy, a 
distance of about forty-seven miles, the summit of 
the Pass being at more than eighty-one hundred feet 
elevation. It is named for St. Bernard of Menthon, 
who was born at that town in Savoy, in 923, and be- 
came the Archdeacon of Aosta, being engaged for 
forty years in missions among the people of this 
mountain region. He saw the terrible hardships 
that Alpine travellers suffered, and founded the Great 
St. Bernard hospice, where during nine centuries the 
monks, who afterward became St. Augustinians, have 
ministered to their wants, and at the same time 
taken care of the series of huts and shelters built at 
intervals on the Great and Little St. Bernard Passes. 
The Great St. Bernard crosses the range to the east- 
ward of Mont Blanc, and the Little St. Bernard 
crosses to the southward, both going to Aosta. 

There are hundreds of mountain passes over the 
great range of the Alps, which extends nearly eight 
hundred miles from the Mediterranean, the axis of 



THE ALPS AND THEIR PASSES. 29 

the range being at first north, and then turning 
nearly east. The majority are only mule tracks or 
foot-paths, but there are at least sixty carriage roads 
and most of these are very skillful and costly works. 
When they were begun, no one knows, for the promi- 
nent routes have been crossed from remote periods, 
and at the dawn of history. The earliest knowledge 
of the Alps was only of the portions adjacent to these 
Passes. In their desire for conquest, the Eomans 
were the first to travel these roads extensively, and 
as a long and toilsome ascent was necessary, they 
were all called "Mons," which term has survived, so 
that while the routes are over depressions in the 
range, they are all now known as Monts or Moun- 
tains, thus explaining why the ancient name para- 
doxically belongs to a depression rather than to a 
peak. Similarly preserved have been the designations 
originally given by the Romans to the chief Alpine 
groups. The great range, where Mont Blanc is lo- 
cated and which includes the highest summits, em- 
braced between the Little St. Bernard and St. Gott- 
hard to the eastward is called the Pennine Alps. 
Before the days of the Caesars the Celtic dia- 
lect was used in Cisalpine Gaul, with its name of 
Pen or Ben signifying a mountain, and hence came 
the title with the subsequent Eoman designation also 
of Jupiter Penninus. 

To the southward of the Little St. Bernard are the 
Graian Alps, extending to Mont Cenis. This is said 
to have been originallv a Celtic name, thous^h Plinv 



30 SWITZERLAND. 

and some others have derived it from the legendary 
crossing of these mountains by a detachment of 
Greeks led by Hercules. Beyond Mont Cenis and ex- 
tending between Piedmont and France, as far as 
Monte Viso, are the Cottian Alps, named from the 
powerful Cottius who ruled this region when the 
Komans in the days of Augustus occupied Gaul. 
Southward from Monte Viso, are the Maritime Alps, 
extending to the Mediterranean. To the eastward of 
the Pennines are the Lepontine Alps, on both sides of 
St. Gotthard Pass and stretching to the Pass of San 
Bernardino. On the Italian side of the St. Gotthard 
are the sources of the river Ticino, and the name 
came from the tribe of the Lepontii, inhabiting that 
river valley. Beyond, to the eastward is the long 
range of the Ehsetian Alps, named from the tribe of 
the Ehgeti living along the Adige and the Salm rivers. 
Farther on are the Noric Alps, extending to Hungary, 
the Carnic, Dinaric and Julian Alps, where in the dis- 
tant eastward the range falls away into the plateaus 
of Bosnia and the lower Danube. There are also 
other outlying groups making up the grand Alpine 
system. 

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 

We mount the ascent from Martigny past Osieres 
to the summit of the Great St. Bernard Pass, and 
while the journey is somewhat dreary it displays fine 
scenery. Upon the northern slope is Bourg St. Pierre, 
where there are relics of Eoman forts and a milestone 



Great St. Bernard Pass, Hospice, and Dogs. 



THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 31 

of the Caesars. The Hospice is at the summit of the 
PasS;, about thirty miles from Martigny; and just be- 
yond, the national boundary between Switzerland and 
Italy is marked by stone monuments. A temple to 
Jupiter Penninus originally stood upon the adjacent 
summit which in this way got the name of Monte 
Jove, a title locally translated now as the Mont Joux. 
Thence the bridle-path descends on the Italian side 
to St. Ehem}^, where is the custom-house. The road 
is then constructed down the ravine of the Buthier 
to a lower level, and soon enters a pleasant land of 
vineyards and more attractive scenery, the Buthier 
joining the Dora Baltea at Aosta. This was an old Eo- 
man fortress of Augustus, built to control the valley 
of the Dora and the mountain passes, and it displays 
interesting Eoman antiquities, among them the Porta 
Prsetoria under which the chief street enters, it be- 
ing the triumphal arch of Augustus, and the walls 
enclosing the rectangular camp, an area of about 
1600 by 2400 feet. Aosta is in a splendid situation 
environed by lofty mountains. The most famous 
modern event connected with the Great St. Bernard 
was the march of Napoleon with an army of thirty 
thousand men over the Pass in May, 1800, when he 
overcame the greatest difficulties. This was the 
movement by which he attacked the Austrians and 
captured Milan. At Bourg St. Pierre, the sign of 
the village inn recalls it, representing Napoleon rid- 
ing a prancing charger, and announcing that he 
stopped there for breakfast. The sober tradition, 



32 SWITZERLAND. 

however, is rather against the artist's fancy, it heing 
related that the great General really rode over the 
Pass upon a quiet mule. 

The impressive tradition of the Great St. Beruard 
Pass, however, is of the beneficent labors of the 
monks in assuaging the hardships and sorrows of the 
travellers. These were much more severe in the ear- 
lier days than they now are. Beginning with All 
Saints' Day, the monks daily patrol the Pass through- 
out the winter. There are large numbers of the poor 
and working classes crossing the mountain even in 
the most severe wintry season, and they are frequently 
found overcome by storms, sleeping the death sleep 
caused by the intense cold, and are rescued. They are 
given drink and food from the supplies carried by the 
famous St. Bernard dogs in rolls around their necks; 
are guided to the nearest shelters, and when restored 
are sent forward to their destination. Should the 
frost bites be so serious as to require amputations 
they are taken to the monks' hospital at Aosta, while 
those who die are deposited in the morgue at the Hos- 
pice and if the bodies are unclaimed, are buried. Ex- 
cepting the Santa Maria, on the Stelvio Pass^ which is 
about fifty feet higher, the St. Bernard Hospice is the 
most elevated habitation occupied in winter on the 
higher Alps. So severe is the climate that the young 
monks average barely fifteen years of service, when, 
with broken health, they have to leave the Hospice, 
and seek a milder home at a lower elevation, going 
down usually to Martigny or Aosta. There are about 



THE GREAT ST. BERNARD. 33 

fifteen Augustinian monks usually at the Hospice, with 
a half-dozen attendants. There are some forty in 
the brotherhood, others serving at stations on the 
Little St. Bernard Pass, and on the Simplon further 
eastward, and performing ecclesiastical and chari- 
table duties in various places. 

The Hospice at the summit of the Pass was not 
long ago enlarged by adding modern buildings. The 
earlier structures came from the sixteenth century 
and the church was finished in 1680. One building 
contains the cells of the monks and the travellers' 
rooms; another is the storehouse and refuge for poor 
wayfarers. Upon arrival, the visitor is welcomed 
by a brother and assigned a room and place at table. 
Lodging and food are free, but the expectation is 
that alms will be put in the poor-box in the church, 
equal to what might have been paid at a hotel. There 
is always a hearty welcome. The dining room walls 
are hung with pictures, chiefly gifts, and the library 
contains coins and relics, among the most curious be- 
ing fragments of votive brass offerings anciently pre- 
sented to Jupiter Penninus after escaping danger 
on the Pass. Upon the western side of the Hospice 
is a small mountain lake which is often frozen over in 
summer nights. The assistance to travellers con- 
tinues for seven to nine months each year, and among 
the interesting adjuncts is the spacious kennel of the 
St. Bernard dogs who aid in the ministrations. The 
stock is said to have originally come from the Pyre- 
nees, but the old breed is now extinct. This most an- 



34 SWITZERLAND. 

cient of the Alpine passes, has been travelled by in- 
vading armies since before the Christian era, and 
bloody contests have been waged for its control. 

MARTIGNY TO CHAMOUNIX. 

From Martigny the pass over the Col de la Forclaz 
for ChamoTinix, follows the route of the Great St. 
Bernard for over a mile, and then diverging south- 
westward climbs steeply out of the Ehone valley, to 
the summit of the Forclaz, nearly five thousand feet. 
In the ascent a fine view is given up the deeply carved 
valley of the Ehone for many miles. High above is 
the extensive glacier of the Trient, the northernmost 
glacier of the Mont Blanc range. Then through for- 
ests of firs and amid rocks and rubbish in a desolate 
region, the route mounts higher, crossing the sum- 
mit of the Col de Balme at over seventy-two hun- 
dred feet elevation, the watershed between the Ehone 
and the Arve, and the national boundary di- 
viding Switzerland and France. Here is seen 
the deep trench formed by the Arve, its head 
streams rising on the flanks of the mountain, and 
over beyond the chasm is a superb view of the vast 
Mont Blanc range. This deep trench formed by the 
Arve is the famous Vale of Chamounix, and down its 
precipitous sides the road winds to the village, the 
carriage journey over the pass occupying the greater 
part of the day. To the northwestward is the other 
route from the summit down by the Tete l^oire. 



Mont Blanc and Chamounix. 



MARTIGNY TO CHAMOUNIX. 35 

through the Vale of the Eau Noire, the "Mauvais 
Pas," which gives a startling exposition of these for- 
bidding mountain fastnesses and dreary gorges. 

These roads between Martigny and Chamounix are 
among the most popular tourist routes in the Alps, 
as this is the connection from the upper Eh one val- 
ley over to the Mont Blanc region. A railway of 
twenty-four miles length is now being constructed 
across the mountain and is expected to be completed 
in 1907. Three miles down the Rhone from Mar- 
tigny, it ascends the steep side of the valley from 
Vernayaz to Salvan, climbing fifteen hundred feet in 
a mile and one-half, the railway curving around like 
the letter S and the mechanism of lifting the train on 
a grade of one in five being by a cog-wheel arrange- 
ment. It goes up alongside the Gorge of the Trient, 
and following the Tete Noire the route crosses the 
summit through the forests and then descends grad- 
ually on ledges cut out of the sides of a precipitous 
ravine, with tunnels bored through the projecting 
cliffs. Thus it gradually gets down to the floor of 
the valley and reaches Chamounix. These mountain 
passes are filled with villages in the most picturesque 
locations, which are generally aggregations of sum- 
mer boarding houses. In Chamounix there are more 
than twenty hotels with accommodations for five 
thousand people, besides the many less pretentious 
"pensions" and cottages which also receive visitors. 

This is one of the most curiously attractive places 
in Switzerland, its name being derived from its moun- 



36 SWITZERLAND. 

tain defences, the champs munis, meaning the "for- 
tified grounds/^ The Chamonnix vale which hounds 
the Mont Blanc range on the northwest, as seen from 
high ahove on the approach by this pass, is an ex- 
traordinary region. It is a very deep and narrow 
elongated, curving fissure enclosed by tremendous 
precipices. This trench is twelve miles long and a 
half-mile wide, the Arve rushing through it from 
northeast toward the southwest, the floor of the val- 
ley being elevated about thirty-four hundred feet 
above sea level. The enclosing mountains rise about 
nine to ten thousand feet high on the northwest side 
of the trench, being thus three times as high as its 
width, while on the southeast side where the great 
range is, they are much higher. All these mountains 
are snow-covered, and out of their tops are thrust the 
jagged, pointed rocks, that are the Alpine "aiguilles" 
or "needles," being usually without snow, as they are 
too steep for it to remain upon them. In their sides 
huge fissures are scarred out, down which come gla- 
ciers, while in the lower parts they are dry-beds of 
spring-time torrents. Verdure covers these steep 
precipices below the snow-line, gradually developing 
from' heather to bushes, grass, and finally trees, as the 
mountain is descended. At the bottom, this remark- 
able valley has an almost flat, and fertile surface, 
every available part being carefully cultivated or used 
for pasturage. The fields are numerously crossed by 
stony moraines, these torrent beds running out to 
the Arve, which receives all the streams in its hois- 



THE SEA OF ICE. 37 

terous course. We are told that a band of Benedic- 
tine monks first brought this Chamounix vale under 
cultivation in the twelfth century, but it was almost 
unknown to the world until tourists to the Alps began 
visiting it in the eighteenth century. 

Upon the Mont Blanc range, the line of perpetual 
snow is about eight thousand feet above the sea- 
level, and forty-six hundred feet above Chamounix. 
The greatest view of the range at Chamounix is 
seen from the Flegere, on the mountain side to the 
northward of the village, at an elevation of sixty-two 
hundred feet. In full exhibition across the deep val- 
ley, the magnificent mountain chain is spread out, 
with the great glacier of the Mer de Glace opposite, 
and on all sides a grand galaxy of peaks. The Mont 
Blanc summit is somewhat distant, but most splen- 
did, and here can be got probably the best near view 
of this unrivalled group of snow-covered mountains, 
of which the broad top of Mont Blanc is the monarch. 

THE SEA OF ICE. 

On both sides of the Mont Blanc range there come 
down numerous glaciers discharging into the streams 
leading into the Arve on the northern side and the 
Po on the southern. The most famous of these gla- 
ciers, as it is the largest, is the Mer de Glace, above 
referred to, the "Sea of Ice," flowing down the north- 
ern flanks of the mountain to the Chamounix vale, 
just above the village. Three spacious glaciers unite 



38 SWITZERLAND. 

in the higher regions to form this sea, coming through 
as many capacious ravines in the mountain-sides, and 
combining in one broad stream of ice which curves 
around and flows ver}^ slowly downward, at first as 
the Mer de Glace, and then below, as the Glacier des 
Bois, until reaching the floor of the valley, it dissolves 
into a torrent of dirty water rushing to the Arve. 
Up to the Montanvert near its edge, visitors climb to 
look at this Sea of Ice, and then crossing the stony 
moraines guarding and enclosing it on either hand 
and the broad ice-stream between, the}^ go to the 
Chapeau, a projecting rock on the opposite edge, 
where there is a splendid view. The enormous peaks 
and needles of the higher x\lps environ it all about, 
and everywhere are rocks and precipices, snow and 
ice. Xo sign of vegetation appears and snow fills 
ever}^ fissure. 

Upon every side, the glaciers come down out of the 
billowy mountains, making the strange rivers of ice, 
which appear on their surfaces like the sea in a storm, 
suddenly stilled and frozen, and then having had snow 
powdered over, as if to smooth the rough edges. The 
compressed and concentrated ice-stream, impercepti- 
bly moves, with the slowest, and yet resistless mo- 
tion, groaning and cracking, with fissures opening 
and closing, gradually melting, and finally at the 
lower end, dissolving into the seething torrent which 
runs away to swell the Avxe. From one to two feet 
daily, depending upon the season, is the speed with 
which the glacier moves, the centre rather faster 



Tourists Crossing mer de Glace. 



MONT BLANC. 39 

than the sides. From tliree hundred to four hun- 
dred feet is the annual rate of motion, and the height 
is reduced twenty to thirt}^ feet a year by the waste 
of melting. It picks up many stones and boulders, 
bringing them downward; wastes at the lower end, 
being constantly replenished above, and thus con- 
tinues as it has been doing from the creation, resist- 
lessly and eternally. 

MONT BLANC. 

We have come to the greatest of the Alps, Mont 
Blanc, rising as a stupendous pyramid seen from afar. 
The farthest distance from which it can be seen is 
westward, in France, about one hundred and thirty 
miles. Granite composes the mass of the mountain, 
being covered with strata of schists and limestones, 
while the entire top and sides are perpetually mantled 
with snow of dazzling whiteness. From this has 
come the name, and in fact, for the same reason all 
the highest mountains in the world when their names 
are translated, are found to be "White Mountains," 
or "snow mountains," being thus described by those 
who first gazed upon them, wherever they might be. 
Deeply carved valleys are to the north and south of 
the great mountain, the former Chamounix A^ale, and 
the latter the Allee Blanche. Mont Blanc has been 
probably the most numerously visited and closely 
studied of the world's famous peaks. Among the 
earliest visitors was the naturalist De Saussure, who 



40 SWITZERLAND. 

came from Geneva in 1760. In Chamounix his monu- 
ment was erected in 1887, to mark the centenary of 
his ascent of Mont Blanc, displaying an attractive 
group in bronze representing De Saussure conducted 
by the guide Jacques Balmat. The ascent is the cul- 
minating event of a visit, and in the summer, it is 
made almost daily. The view from the summit, how- 
ever, is too indistinct to repay the fatigue of the jour- 
ney, the extreme height and vast distances spoiling 
the prospect. Only a faint outline can be got of the 
great mountain chains bordering the horizon, the 
Jura, the distant Alps of the Oberland and the Ap- 
penines. The first successful ascent was made in 
1786, by the guide Balmat, it being until then, con- 
sidered an impossible feat. When De Saussure came 
in 1760, he offered a prize for the exploration of a 
practicable route, and in 1787, Balmat guided De 
Saussure to the summit, being accompanied by seven- 
teen other guides. The first lady ascending, was Mile. 
Paradis, in 1809, and the first Americans were Messrs. 
Howard and Eensselaer, in 1819. 

There is a regular tariff for ascents by the Cha- 
mounix guides, according to which one person re- 
quires two guides at $20 each and one porter at $10, 
each additional person in the party requiring an- 
other guide. When other necessary expenses are in- 
cluded, the cost usually for a party, averages $50 for 
each person. Three days are occupied by the jour- 
ney, generally made by way of the Grands Mulcts at 
an elevation of ten thousand feet on the mountain 



MONT BLANC. 41 

side, where the first night is passed in a small inn. 
The journey is continued on the second day to the 
summit. Other routes are also taken. The top of the 
mountain has thei Observatory built by Dr. Jannsen 
in 1893, which is constructed upon the frozen snow 
covering the summit. This is a curious two-storied 
building, about thirty-eight feet high, but rising 
above the surface of the snow only two-fifths of that 
distance. The top of the lower story is level with the 
snow, and the laboratories and dwelling are beneath, 
with the visitors' waiting rooms also below. The up- 
per story is the Observatory, and the roof, forming 
a terrace surrounded by a balustrade, is strongly sup- 
ported. A dome of heavy beams protects the mathe- 
matical instruments and telescopes. Owing to its 
peculiar location, this structure rests upon heavy 
jackscrews, so that if the snow beneath and around it 
settles, by manipulating the screws it can be replaced 
in proper upright position. The construction is pyra- 
midal, to best resist the winds, and it is lighted by 
small dormer-windows having double panes of thick 
glass. In building it, all the materials were carried 
up to the summit on men's backs, they being paid $5 
for each round trip of two days' ascent and one day's 
descent. There were forty mountaineers thus en- 
gaged, each one's burden being limited to thirty 
pounds, and the aggregate weight of materials thus 
carried up being fifteen tons. The work cost about 
$60,000, and the mountain summit whereon it stands 
is about one hundred and twenty-six feet long and 



42 SWITZERLAND. 

forty-eight feet wide. The original plan was to found 
the structure upon the rock, but the preliminary tun- 
nels driven through the snow and ice, although going 
nearty seventy feet below the summit, failed to find 
anything but ice and snow, so that it was impossible. 
The first catastrophe in ascending Mont Blanc was 
in 1866, when Captain Arkwright was lost near the 
summit in a storm, and in 1897 his body was found. 
It had been carried for over thirty years gradually 
along the Glacier des Bossons, which flows down 
northward, and was then found near the bottom of 
the glacier and not far from Chamounix. His grave 
is near the gate of the English church in the village. 
Three persons, including two Americans, in Septem- 
ber, 1870, made the ascent with three guides, and all 
perished. Ascents are very frequent now, and the 
occasional catastrophes attract comparatively less at- 
tention than when the ascents were rare. A com- 
plete company of Chasseurs visited the summit in 
1901, and a salute was fired at Chamounix. There is 
a large mortality in the Alpine regions from acci- 
dents to mountain-climbers, the decade of 1890- 
1901 having a record of over three hundred lives lost. 
It is an interesting fact that the records of the Alpine 
Club at Bern, show that a hundred thousand people 
annually visit the Alps, of whom fully one-fourth 
climb the mountains, and about one hundred and 
twenty go to the summit of Mont Blanc. The aver- 
age annual loss of life in the mountain-climbing is 
twenty-seven. 



THE VALLEY OF THE AAR. 43 



THE VALLEY OF THE AAR. 

We will return to Lausanne again, and from the 
shore of Lake Geneva, cross over the watershed north- 
ward to the valley of the chief tributary of the Rhine^ 
the river Aar. Mont Jorat, overlooking Lausanne, 
is the western verge and outcropping of the long 
mountain range of the Bernese Oberland. Xorth- 
ward of this range is the extensive basin of the river 
Aar and its branches, this being the greatest feeder 
of the Ehine, draining the larger portion of the ex- 
tensive "Plains of Switzerland,^' stretching eastward 
from the Jura range. This basin embraces nearly 
seven thousand square miles. These so-called 
"Plains" are in reality a series of huge and most at- 
tractive undulating valleys along the branches of the 
Aar, with intervening ridges enclosing the pleasant 
intervales. The Aar, which is a most beautiful stream 
of silvery waters, after a course of about one hun- 
dred and seventy miles. Joins the Rhine at Waldshut 
on the northern verge of Switzerland. These nu- 
merous and deeply excavated Swiss valleys seem to 
prosper much in accordance with the amount of sun- 
shine they are able to get in their environment of high 
mountains. It is noteworthy that the villages are 
almost always found on the sunny sides, where also 
are the best pastures and agriculture, and most of the 
population. 



44 SWITZERLAND. 



FREIBURG TO MORAT. 

Crossing over the watershed northward from the 
Lake of Geneva at Lausanne, and descending into 
the basin of the Aar, upon its tributary, the Sarine, 
is built the ancient city of Freiburg. The railway 
courses along this rich and beautiful valley, giving 
evidence of the great industry and thrift of the 
Swiss, Freiburg is noted for its two impressive sus- 
pension bridges, prominent in every view of the lo- 
cality. The Grand Pont Suspendu crosses the Sarine 
at an elevation of about one hundred and seventy 
feet, while over a tributary ravine is thrown the 
Pont de Gotterou, a similar bridge two hundred and 
fifty feet high. Freiburg is the capital of its Can- 
ton, the old-time LTechtland, and was founded in the 
twelfth century by Berthold of Zahringen. It is 
built upon an elevation, around which flows the Sa- 
rine in a splendid curve, and the town's chief heir- 
loom, a venerable lime tree, stands in front of the 
Hotel de Ville. This tree commemorates the famous 
victor}^ of the Swiss over Charles the Bold of Bur- 
gundy, at Lake Morat in 14 '7 6. An enormous lime 
tree stood upon that battlefield, and the tradition is 
that a young man of Freiburg, who saw the battle, 
ran with a twig of this tree, fourteen miles to Frei- 
burg, sank exhausted, being able only to gasp the 
word "Victory," and died. Where he fell, the twig 



FREIBURG TO MORAT. 45 

was planted, and there the tree has grown for over 
four centuries. The site of the ancient castle of the 
Dukes of Zahringen is occupied hy the Hotel de Yille, 
and some parts of the old walls and towers then pro- 
tecting the town, yet remain. The Cathedral 
Church of St. Mcholas was founded in the thirteenth 
century, and is noted for its great organ, among the 
finest existing, having sixty-seven stops and eighteen 
hundred pipes, some being thirty-two feet long. A 
curious feature of Freiburg is the boundary, passing 
through the place, between the French and German 
language in Switzerland, French being spoken to the 
southwest of this line, toward the Jura and Lake 
Geneva, and German toward the northeast in the 
lower town. 

The Lake Morat is northward of Freiburg, and 
Morat village stands upon its eastern bank, while 
southward is ancient Avenches, the capital of the 
Helvetii, and the Eoman Aventicum. Various Eo- 
man remains are disclosed here; and a mediaeval cas- 
tle occupies the site of the Eoman capitol. !N'earby 
rises a relic of the Temple of Apollo, a solitary Corin- 
thian column, about forty feet high, which for cen- 
turies has been occupied by a stork's nest; and from 
this feature it came to be popularly known as the 
Cigognier. Lord Byron has written of this isolated 
column in CJiilde Harold: 

"By a lone wall, a lonelier column rears 
A gray and grief -worn aspect of old days; 
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of vears, 



46 SWITZERLAND. 

And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze 

Of one to stone converted by amaze, 
Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands 

Making a marvel that it not decays, 
When the coeval pride of human hands, 
Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands." 

Lake Morat was the Eoman Lacus Aventicencis 
and the Vecht-see of the middle ages. It is over five 
miles long and almost an oval. Morat village care- 
fully preserves the ancient walls which protected it 
against the bombardment by Charles the Bold be- 
fore the great battle. Its arcaded streets are over- 
looked by the old castle, and its Museum has a col- 
lection of Burgundian weapons and relics. Charles 
brought an army of fifty thousand, but Adrian Von 
Bubenberg successfully resisted his siege with a gar- 
rison of fifteen hundred Swiss, while the mountain- 
eers were collecting from all directions for his re- 
lief. The battle was fought just south of the lake, 
June 22, 1476, and Charles was badly defeated, with 
a loss of fifteen thousand men, and his treasures and 
stores. In the preceding spring he had been beaten 
by the Swiss at Grandson, w^est of Freiburg, beyond 
the head of Lake Neuchatel, and the next year, he 
was finally defeated and slain at Nancy. The old 
proverb tells us that in these three battles this most 
powerful, and last Duke "of Burgundy, lost his "Gut, 
Mut und Blut" — his treasure, his courage, and his 
life. His constant ambition, thus foiled, had been 
to restore the ancient kingdom of Burgundy. J^ear 
the shore of the lake, south of Morat, a marble obelisk 



FREIBURG TO MORAT. 47 

was erected marking the battlefield. Upon an over- 
looking hill, is the huge lime-tree, under which the 
Swiss are said to have held their council planning the 
battle. The tradition is that the bones of the slain 
Burgundians were gathered into a single vast sepul- 
chre w^here they rested for centuries, when to efface 
the memory of the defeat, they were scattered over 
the field. Then began a rivalry in carrying off these 
relics. Every Burgundian passing that way, patriot- 
ically took home a bone to bury in sunny France. 
Every Swiss W'ho came along, also carried them off, 
to carve into knife-handles, bears or other emblems, 
the years of bleaching having given them a dazzling 
whiteness that was popular. These Morat knife- 
handles and relics are still made and sold to the tour- 
ists. It was natural that this famous battlefield 
should attract Byron's poetic genius. Cliilde Harold 
paused before nearing the distant Alps : 

"But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, 
There is a spot should not be passed in vain, — 

Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man 
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, 
Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain; 

Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, 
A bony heap, through ages to remain, 

Themselves their monument; — the Stygian coast 

Unsepulchred they roamed, and shriek'd each wandering 
ghost, 

"While Waterloo with Cannse's carnage vies, 

Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; 
They were true Glory's stainless victories, 
Won by the unambitious heart and hand 



48 SWITZERLAND. 

Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, 
All unbought champions in no princely cause 

Of vice entail'd Corruption; they no land 
Doom'd to bev^^ail the blasphemy of laws 
Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause." 

LAKE NEUCHATEL. 

High intervening ridges make narrow peninsulas 
separating Lake Morat from Lake Nenehatel to the 
westward^ into which the former discharges. At the 
hase of the long range of the Jura, bounding the 
northwestern horizon, spreads the wide Lake ISTeu- 
chatel, stretching twenty-five miles from the south- 
west toward the northeast, its fertile borders being 
a prolific vineyard and pasture land. This was the 
Eoman Lacus Eburodunensis, and adjoining its shores 
are the noted lake dwellings of La Tene at Marin, 
near its northeastern outlet, the relics of a civiliza- 
tion prior to the days of Eome. 

The Canton of Neuchatel came into the Swiss Con- 
federation in the first half of the nineteenth century, 
and its capital, the town of Neuchatel, is in a charm- 
ing situation on the slopes of the Jura, spreading 
broadly upon the northwestern shore of the lake. 
An attractive quay and tree-planted promenade front 
it for over a mile along the edge of the water, and 
near the centre is the little harbor, almost enclosed 
by protecting piers. A monument commemorates 
the accession of the Canton to Switzerland, and from 
the promenade there is a superb outlook across the 



LAKE NEUCHATEL. 49 

lake at the distant Alpine ranges. Back on the hill 
is the "Neu ChateF' — ^the ancient, but recently re- 
stored chateau, dating from the twelfth century, 
which is now the Cantonal Capitol. Adjacent is the 
old Abbey Church, with its fine monument, a four- 
teenth century erection to the Counts of ^euchatel. 
A statue in front represents Farel, the reformer of 
the sixteenth century, and there are pleasant adjoin- 
ing cloisters, relics of the b3^gone era. The Museum 
of Art and Antiquities has valuable collections, with 
much that illustrates w^atchmaking, the leading 
manufacture of the Canton. An Observatory, on a 
height above the town, has been erected for the 
watchmakers' benefit, having telegraphic communi- 
cation with Chaux de Fonds, the great watchmaking 
village about eighteen miles northwest, among the 
spurs of the Jura, at nearly thirty-three hundred feet 
elevation. Here are handsome streets and buildings, 
and over thirty thousand people, who say they are 
proud to know that they live in "the largest village 
of Europe.^' Another important watchmaking set- 
tlement, though with smaller population, is Le Locle. 
This industry, in both places, was founded by M. 
Richard, who died in 1741, his bronze statue being 
erected opposite the Watchmakers' School of Le 
Locle. Southwest from ISTeuchatel, the pretty little 
river Reuse flows through the Yal de Travers, and 
here at the village of Motiers on May 28, 1807, Louis 
Agassiz was born. 

Lake Neuchatel discharges through the canal of 
4 



50 SWITZERLAND. 

Zihl, northeastward into the smaller Lake Bienne, 
which is substantially a prolongation, stretching for 
ten miles. The latter in turn discharges through 
the river Zihl into the Aar, which having come out 
from the south by a great western curve, now turns 
northeast seeking the Rhine. At the foot of the 
lake is the old town of Bienne, also a proliiic maker 
of watches. The Aar flows through a picturesque 
valley in the Canton Soleure, which entered the Con- 
federation in the fifteenth century. It passes the an- 
cient town of Soleure, the Roman Salodurum, claim- 
ing to be after Treves, the oldest city north of the 
Alps. Here are a Cathedral, and an Arsenal, with 
collections of ancient weapons and armor, including 
the shield of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Its old- 
est and most treasured building is the curious Clock 
l^ower, said to be a Burgundian structure of the fifth 
century, but by some claimed to have been erected as 
early as 400 B. C. This tower has a Latin inscrip- 
tion relating the great antiquity of the town. Thad- 
deus Kosciuszko died here in 1817. There are mag- 
nificent views from the Weissenstein and other high 
hills, enclosing the deep valley of the Aar. 

Farther down the river is Aarburg, its original 
castle now being devoted to the practical uses of a 
factory. Northeastward and still farther down is 
Aarau, the capital of Canton Argau, the houses 
spreading along the river bank at the bases of the 
Jura foothills. Here lived the Swiss historian 
Zschokke, whose house is pointed out and his bronze 



LAKE NP:UCHATEL. 51 

statue adorns the village. Below, the mountain 
spurs closely approach the Aar, and there are sulphur 
and other baths at the base of the high Wiilpelsberg. 
On top of the eminence are the ruins of the famous 
castle of Hapsburg, where the Imperial family of 
Austria had its origin. The castle was built by 
Count Eadbod in the early eleventh century, and from 
the summit, the view includes the entire ancient do- 
main of these Counts, extending over the valleys of 
the Aar, and of the Eeuss and the Limmat, its tribu- 
taries, flowing down from the outlying spurs of the 
higher Alps of the Bernese Oberland at the south- 
eastern and southern horizon. The ruins chiefly are 
a tower with thick walls, including the room occu- 
pied by the noted Count Eudolph of Hapsburg. Far- 
ther down the Aar at Brugg, died Pestalozzi, the 
noted Swiss educator of the early nineteenth century 
who did so much to develop the modern school sys- 
tem. The town displays near the river, the restored 
Schwarze Thurm, an ancient Eoman construction; 
and in the suburbs is the Abbey of Konigsfelden, 
founded in the fourteenth century on the spot where 
Albert of Austria was murdered in 1308 by John of 
Swabia. His widow, Elizabeth, and daughter, Agnes, 
were the builders, but only part of the original con- 
struction remains. It has been greatly enlarged, for 
its modern occupation by a lunatic asylum. The 
Abbey church once was the place of interment of 
princes of the House of Austria, but the tombs are 
empty. Nearby, the Eeuss joins the Aar, and on the 



52 SWITZERLAND. 

peninsula between them, anciently stood the Hel- 
vetian town of Yindonissa, which was destroyed in 
the fifth century. Eecent excavations here, have dis- 
closed various Koman and even more ancient re- 
mains, including the foundation walls of a large am- 
phitheatre. The Aar receives the Limmat to the 
northward, and then soon joins the Ehine. 

THE CANTON BERN. 

Upon the northern verge of the Aar valley at So- 
leure, the high enclosing ridge, as we have seen, cul- 
minates in the eminence of the Weissenstein, rising 
over forty-two hundred feet. The people climb up 
here to enjoy the grand view given of the Plains of 
Switzerland, the distant Bernese Oberland, and the 
whole Alpine chain from the far eastern Tyrol to the 
crowning summit of Mont Blanc to the southward. 
As one stands on this point of noble outlook, on either 
hand the long pine-clad ridge stretches to the north- 
east and southwest. In front is the deeply carved 
river valley, the Aar winding through the fertile 
plains from the south, while to the southwest, glint 
the silver waters of the lakes Bienne, Morat and Neu- 
chatel. There is a broad stretch of lowlands beyond, 
with undulating surface of verdure, grain fields and 
gardens, pasture and woodlands, having a confused 
mass of hills behind them, rising into flattened tops, 
and then the loftier mountain waves, with range 
after range of higher summits and steeper slopes. 



Bern. 



THE CANTON BERN. 53 

These culminate in a vast enclosing range of bare 
crags, which has yet behind it at the horizon, and 
higher still, as their contours stand out against the 
sky, the final range of snowy peaks of the highest 
Alps. From this summit of the Weissenstein there 
can be seen the mountains of sixteen Swiss Cantons. 
The most conspicuous part of the landscape, how- 
ever, is nearer — the wide stretch of land spreading . 
from one's feet toward the far-away snow-clad range. 
This is the famous Canton Bern, probably the most 
important in Switzerland, which extends from the 
Jura ranges south and southeast to the mountains of 
the Bernese Oberland. Among them the river Aar 
rises in its southeastern corner, and coming through 
the lakes of Brienz and Thun, crosses westward in 
the centre of the canton, past its capital, Bern, and 
makes a great sweeping bend around by the west, to 
come to Soleure. The valleys of the Oberland are 
famous for their beauty — for there in the distance 
are the mountains enclosing the Grindelwald and the 
Lauterbrunnen, with the plain of Interlaken, be- 
tween the lakes. 

About twenty-iive miles southward over this de- 
licious landscape, as the crow flies, is the capital of 
the Canton, and of the Swiss Confederation, Bern. 
The river Aar flows around a bold sandstone penin- 
sula rising over a hundred feet above the swift tor- 
rent, and here, in a magnificent situation, the city 
is built, with high bridges spanning the deep river 
ravine on all sides. The redoubtable Berthold von 



54 SWITZERLAND. 

Zaliringen in the twelfth century, wandered along 
the Aar valley, and upon this flat-topped peninsula 
he hunted and killed a ferocious bear. The animal 
had been a terror to the inhabitants, and in com- 
memoration of the event Berthold founded the town 
in 1191, naming it after the bear. Thus began the 
devotion to Ursa Major which has always been the 
pride of the Bernese, the word Baren being German 
for bears, and during more than seven centuries these 
loyal people have kept pet bears in the town, have set 
up images of bears, and in every way shown their de- 
votion, the bear appearing in effigy and name in all 
places, on coats of arms, signs, heraldic emblems, on 
fountains and flagstafls, in clock-towers striking the 
hours, as toys and heroes in unlimited variety. There 
is a herd of pet bears kept in spacious pits at the 
public expense, wdiile the population pay obeisance. 
Thus has it been during the centuries. In 1798, 
when Xapoleon despoiled all this part of Europe of 
its treasures to carry off to Paris, he took thither the 
historic bears from Bern. The city was inconsolable, 
and when the Empire fell, one of the chief stipula- 
tions of the Swiss was for the return of the bears 
and they were brought back with great pomp and re- 
joicing. These bears are closely guarded and only 
bread and fruit can be given them. Upon the side 
wall of the ancient West Gate, a most revered relic 
of the past, the Zeitglockenthurm, now the central 
point of the greatly extended city, is the old Clock 
Tower. Here sits the great Berthold in solemn state, 



THE CANTON BERN. 55 

and the approach of each hour is proclaimed to him 
by the crowing of a cock. When the time comes, a 
troop of bears marches around him, a dignified bear 
nods his head at every stroke, and Berthold opens his 
month and swings his sceptre. 

Bern is one of the most picturesque towns of 
Switzerland. It is attractive from its old-fashioned 
streets with their shady arcades, the weird gateways, 
the quaint fountains, the constant flowing of the 
waters through the highways, the houses with huge 
gabled roofs, turreted angles and oriel windows, the 
grand Cathedral rising from its rocky base far above 
the rushing Aar, and its glorious view of the snowy 
mountains of the distant Oberland range. The run- 
ning waters make Bern a paradise for the washer- 
women. The fountains set up so numerously on the 
streets are provided with spouts from which flow a 
perennial stream for their special use, and permanent 
tubs and washstands are established that are almost 
always in use. This is a special feature of Bern, and 
is reproduced in most of the Swiss towns, where the 
mountain streams so readily provide an unfailing 
water-supply. The finest edifice of modern construc- 
tion in Bern is the Federal Palace, two great build- 
ings on a commanding height, where the Swiss gov- 
ernment is located, with the chambers of the two 
National Legislative Assemblies. It was here that 
the International Postal Union was founded in Oc- 
tober, 1874. These structures are known as the 
Bundeshauser, being respectively called the East 



56 SWITZERLAND. 

Building and West Building. A fountain figure of 
Berna in heroic bronze adorns the front, and from 
the terrace there is a magnificent view of the moun- 
tains. The Miinster, or Bernese Cathedral built in 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries rises high above 
the Aar, the modern tower elevated over three hun- 
dred and twenty feet above the base of the building. 
Within is the monument erected to Berthold von 
Zahringen, by the city in 1600, while upon the ter- 
race out over the Aar, is his statue, having Bruin 
alongside as his helmet-bearer. 

The city has several museums, with displays of 
art and antiquities. In the Historical Museum are 
objects from the lake dwellings, old armor, and ec- 
clesiastical survivals, including a famous Diptych, pos- 
sessed by Bern since the Eeformation, a cause which 
the people espoused with great fervor. This was for a 
long time supposed to be the field altar of Charles the 
Bold. It was made in Venice at the end of the thir- 
teenth century for King Andrew of Hungary, and 
Queen Agnes presented it to the Abbey of Konigsfel- 
den in the fourteenth century, whence it came to Bern. 
The great charm of the city, however, is the splendid 
view of the Alps, the grand galaxy of snowy peaks ris- 
ing in magnificent array across the southern landscape, 
and the rich Alpine glow being seen with rare en- 
joyment on pleasant evenings. This gorgeous Al- 
pengliihen appears a few minutes after the setting 
sun has disappeared from view, the dark intervening 
valleys then being subdued in the twilight. 



THE LAKE OF THUN. 57 



THE LAKE OF THUN". 

From Bern we ascend the Aar to the lake of Thnn, 
through a deep, broad and richly cultivated valley, 
the stream being embanked to save as much arable 
land as possible. This lake is a beautiful sheet of 
water, having at its lower end, built on the flat sur- 
face of the valley alongside the Aar, the village of 
Thun about nineteen miles from Bern, It is a quaint 
old place, the portal of the Oberland, and above it 
rises at nearly two thousand feet elevation the square 
towered castle of Zahringen-Kyburg, built in the 
twelfth century to control the passage of the lake. 
Its pyramidal roof is guarded by conical-topped cor- 
ner turrets. The lake of Thun, which is over eigh- 
teen hundred feet above sea level, is an expansion of 
the Aar, about two miles wide and eleven miles long. 
It begins among the high mountains and rugged 
scenery of the Bernese Alps, but as the enclosing val- 
ley passes out of the mountain range, it gradually 
becomes a quieter scene of pleasant cottages and 
highly cultivated shores, spreading into the broad in- 
tervale beyond to the village of Thun. 

We have gotten at Thun into one of the great val- 
leys of Switzerland. Two ridges of precipitous moun- 
tains, curving around the arc of a vast circle with its 
concavity toward the northward, extend almost fifty 
miles, parallel and rising about six thousand feet 



58 SWITZERLAND. 

above the valley between them, a depression some 
three miles wide. From the eastward comes out of the 
Alps the Aar through this depression, then proceed- 
ing westward it spreads into the elongated waters" of 
Lake Brienz for nearly nine miles, the width varying 
from a mile to a mile and one-half. Then it enters 
the valley between the lakes which are two miles apart, 
and contains the town of Interlaken, and finally at 
about twenty feet lower level is the lake of Thun, 
while far away to the westward the x\ar flows off be- 
tween lower enclosing ridges toward Bern. The tour- 
ist usually takes a steamboat ride up the lake of 
Thun to Interlaken. As he emerges from the land- 
ing place at Thun, into the foot of the lake, there is 
seen a gorgeous view. This has been well described 
as extending "across the blue waters of the lake, 
across the narrow strip of orchard and vineyard on its 
shores, up to the oak forests, up to the pine forests, 
up to the bright green pastures dotted with chalets, 
up to the bare mountain sides, up to the belt of 
snow, up to the peaks of the Monch, the Eiger and the 
Jungfrau in mid-air, up to the deep azure above." 

The southern wall of this great valle}^ is enclosed 
by the giant mountain range of the Oberland. Down 
through it come the deep tributary valleys of the 
Simme and the Kander, flanked by the cone-like 
summit of the Stockhorn, rising seventy-two hundred 
feet, and the higher pyramid of the Xiesen, elevated 
nearly sevent3^-eight hundred feet. The Simmenthal 
is regarded as one of the most exquisite pastoral 



THE LAKE OF THUN. 59 

scenes in Switzerland, combining orchards and tree 
groves, with rich meadows and splendid hill-slopes, 
environed by the grandest mountains. The vale of 
the Kander is wilder and leads southw^ard to the fa- 
mous Gemmi Pass across the mountains to the 
Ehone. High above the lake shore is seen near the 
mouth of the Kander, into which the Simme comes, 
the old tower of the Chateau of Strattligen, which 
was the cradle of the ducal house of Burgundy. Be- 
yond, upon a low tongue of land by the waterside, is 
ancient Spiez, the starting point for excursions 
through these vales and mountains, and displaying 
the chateau, most picturesquely restored, of the 
counts of Erlach, who were a great family of the 
Canton Bern. 

Ascending the lake of Thun, the steamboat ride 
gives admirable views eastward of the I^iesen, of the 
glittering snow-fields of the Bliimis Alp, of the 
Altels and other high mountains around the Kander- 
thal and the Gemmi Pass, and beyond, the grander 
summits of the "Maiden Peak," the Jungfrau, and 
her attendants the Monch and Eiger, with glimpses 
behind them of the more distant triple summit of 
the "Peak of Tempests," the Wetterhorn, and the 
grand "Peak of Terror," the Schreckhorn. Soon a 
broad green plain bars the way at the head of the 
lake, and entering the Aar channel, the steamboat 
ascends it a short distance and reaches Interlaken. 
This plain separating the two lakes, Thun and Bri- 
enz, is called the Bodeli and is in fact a great delta. 



60 SWITZERLAND. 

During centuries, the lateral stream of the Liitschine, 
coming out of the mountains from the southward, 
into the foot of Lake Brienz, has been bringing 
through the vast gorge in the southern wall of. the 
Aar valley, the ruins of these Oberland mountains. 
From the Wetterhorn far over to the Breithorn, it 
gathers the outflow of all the glaciers and torrents, 
transporting their spoil to this delta, and their copi- 
ous waters to the Aar. 

Throughout this region, in journeying along the 
roads and among the villages, is got a very good idea 
of the mode of life of the Swiss. There are myriads 
of little hamlets of primitive houses. Stones piled 
on the roofs keep the planks and shingles from 
blowing off, while the house-fronts are often remark- 
able for their wood-carvings. This is the land of the 
wood-sculptor, who plies his art, not only in making 
little images and keepsakes, but also in skillfully 
adorning his home, and its adjuncts. Every house 
has its little pile of hard wood, seasoning under the 
eaves in readiness for the knife. Saw-mills are fre- 
quent, with rude and primitive wheels driven by the 
mountain torrents. Goats wander about, each with 
an attendant child. The men carry burdens on their 
backs, or push little hand-carts, where pigs, children, 
and household goods are packed together. The 
women come into Interlaken on high days and holi- 
days, dressed in the peasant's waists, velvet collars 
and silver ornaments of the Canton Bern costume, 
and the men usually wear butternut homespun, as 



INTERLAKEN. 61 

their ancestors have done for centuries. The short- 
tailed coat has the hack buttons well up toward the 
shoulders, and the tail seems to stop almost too soon 
to meet the equally short pantaloons. 

INTERLAKEN. 

Here upon the delta between the lakes, amid the 
ancient villages, which are probably the most unique 
in Switzerland, the rush of the latter-day army of 
tourists, has reproduced in these gorgeous mountains, 
the modern Parisian elegance of the hotels of Inter- 
laken — '^Between the Lakes." The fine avenue of 
the Hoheweg, shaded by walnut and buttonwood 
trees, stretches along the plain, and these hotels are 
mostly built along its northern border. This ave- 
nue extending from northeast to southwest is the 
chief street of the town, and in the season develops 
a grand display of fashionable life. N'ear its eastern 
end is the old monastery of Interlaken, a twelfth 
century foundation, suppressed four centuries later 
and now a hospital and government offices, with its 
ancient church used in different portions for the ser- 
vices of various religious denominations. The south- 
ern side of the Hoheweg is practically unobstructed 
by buildings. From it the green meadows spread 
over to the opening of the Lutschine gorge, with the 
Lauterbrunnen vale beyond. Interlaken is known as 
the "City of One View," and here it is, through this 
opening into the very heart of the Oberland range. 



62 SWITZERLAND. 

Elsewhere the views are circumscribed and common- 
place, but here is a most gorgeous display. On one 
side of the opening are the pine-fringed cliffs of the 
Schynige Platte, and on the other hand, the preci- 
pices rise abruptly to the pastures of Mtirren high 
above, but farther away. Between them, the beau- 
tiful vista is closed by the great cliffs and glaciers of 
the snow-covered Jungfrau. The Virgin mountain, 
a white-hooded maiden, is gently leaning over and 
ever confessing to the attendant Monk, standing by 
her side. This is one of the greatest views in Switzer- 
land, for in all the Alpine region, none other, so well 
combines and contrasts the pastoral beauty and wild 
grandeur here displayed. 

The glittering pyramid of the Jungfrau rises high 
in the cool air of the southern landscape and the cloud 
shadows drift over the snowy slopes. As the visitor 
gazes at these mountains, with their varying hues, 
and vegetation, and sees the many clusters of huts 
and chalets on their sides and in the nooks where they 
protect pasture land, another trait of the thrifty 
Swiss is unfolded. In the x\lps, as soon as the win- 
ter snows have melted from the lower slopes, and the 
mountain pastures are again green with fresh grass, 
growing so well in the sun and moisture, the cattle 
and their attendants, quit the valleys, where the 
winter has been spent. They wind in long proces- 
sion up the rough and zigzag paths, the cows sol- 
emnly following their leader who carries the ever- 
tinkling bell, and behind them the keepers with the 



JUNGFRAU FROM VALLEY OF LAUTERBR 



UNNEN. 



INTERLAKEN. 63 

string of pack-animals. They halt at the lower pas- 
tures, and then as the summer advances, follow the 
retreating snows upward to constantly higher mead- 
ows. The groups of huts at various elevations are 
the temporary abiding places and storm-refuges of 
both men and animals. These chalets picturesquely 
dotted about on the mountain slopes give a pleasant 
change to the view. 

Railways are everywhere in this lovely region, thus 
easing the toils of the tourist — curving through the 
valleys, crossing high bridges over the torrents and 
going into dark tunnels, while the steep mountain 
sides are scaled by fack-and-pinion lines of daring 
construction. Up to the top of the Schynige Platte 
the visitor is thus lifted, to an elevation of over 
sixty-five hundred feet to enjoy an admirable view of 
the entire Oberland range. Another route penetrates 
the Lauterbrunnen Yale almost to the base of the 
towering Jungfrau, coming to the Lauterbrunnen 
village, about eight miles from Interlaken, deep down 
in a narrow rocky valley through which the rapid 
Liitschine rushes, and where the sun's rays do not 
penetrate until very late in the morning. Here are 
springs and streams everywhere, and hence its name 
which means "nothing but springs.'' It is great in 
wet weather, when all the waters are running, and 
its best known cataract is the Staubbach, the "spray- 
brook," this famous stream coming down a vertical 
wall of limestone almost one thousand feet high, in 
a single leap from a jutting rock, most of the water 



64 SWITZERLAND. 

being converted into spray during the descent, so 
that it resembles a silver veil blown by the winds, or 
as the poet says, it falls "like a downward smoke, 
slow-dropping veil of thinnest lawn." Far over the 
village on the one hand rises the snowy summit of the 
Jungfra-a, behind a base of huge rocky precipices, 
while on the other side is the ponderous form of the 
Breithorn. High above the western side of this deep 
valley at an elevation of about fifty-four hundred 
feet, is the hamlet of Miirren, built on a terrace, up 
to which the visitor mounts by a cable and electric 
railway. From here and the adjacent more elevated 
summit of the Allmendhubel there is a famous view 
across the intervening vale of the entire Jungfrau 
range, and its vast expanse of snow-covered peaks and 
extensive glaciers. 

THE JUNGFRAU AN^D HER ATTENDANTS. 

The Queen of the Bernese mountains, the Jung- 
frau, rises 13,670 feet. The adjoining Monch is 13,- 
465 feet high and the more distant pyramid of the 
Eiger, projecting like a bastion from the main chain, 
13,040 feet. On the other side the Wetterhorn rises 
12,150 feet, the Mittlehorn, 12,165 feet, the Eosen- 
horn 12,110 feet, and the Berglistock, 12,000 feet. 
Adjacent are the Schreckhorn, rising 13,385 feet, and 
the highest of all these Bernese Alps, the Finster- 
aarhorn, its summit elevated 14,025 feet. A galaxy 
of attendant summits surrounds them, and vast gla- 



THE JUNGFRAU AND ATTENDANTS. (55 

ciers and snow fields dissolve into the myriads of 
streams feeding the Aar on the one side of the range 
or the Ehone on the other. The Jungfrau was first 
ascended in 1811, and its summit is said to give prob- 
ably the finest view of all the chief Alpine peaks. 
The daring railway builder is even scaling this mag- 
nificent mountain. From Lauterbrunnen eastward, 
a railway zigzags up the slope of the Wengern Alp to 
the peak known as the Kleinescheid egg. Thence a 
road of about seven miles' length, with a maximum 
gradient of one in four, was begun in 1896, and con- 
structed to a tunnel entrance on the slope of the Ei- 
ger at nearly seventy-six hundred feet elevation. This 
portion was completed in 1898, and the progress be- 
yond is mainly by tunnels as it gets up in the re- 
gion of perpetual snows. These tunnels constantly 
rising to higher elevations are bored through the 
verge of the Eiger and the Monch's southern side, 
and then the route is projected through the interven- 
ing mountain, the Jungfrau Joch, which rises over 
eleven thousand feet, and finally to the Jungfrau. 
There are stations on each mountain, and within the 
Jungfrau the elevator station is to be at 13,428 feet 
height, with a final lift, also within the mountain, of 
242 feet further to the summit. The route is thus 
entirely covered, and the estimated cost of the whole 
work is about $2,000,000, the power to be electric, 
derived from various cataracts on the adjacent Liit- 
schine. The bold projector of this road, Herr Guyer- 
Zeller of Zurich, died recently and the construction 



6Q ^ SWITZERLAND. 

has since made but slow progress. Mountain climb- 
ing, however, is being thus steadily superseded by 
the wonderful railways that are constantly building 
throughout the Alps, so that the ordinary tourist can 
now get all he wants of this exhilarating pastime with 
small expenditure of personal effort. 

To the eastward of Lauterbrunnen, and up the 
romantic valley of the Black Lutschine, is the Grin- 
delwald stretching to the northeastward of the Eiger, 
and having the Schreckhorn and Wetterhorn rising 
above it, beyond. This is a beautiful valley, encom- 
passed by peaks and glaciers, and having various vil- 
lages and stopping places where visitors go to view 
the glaciers, climb the mountains, and watch the 
avalanches, which, on warm sunny days, are con- 
stantly falling down the vast slopes and precipices, 
with a sound of distant thunder amid the awful still- 
ness of these desolate fastnesses. The masses of snow 
fall from cliff to cliff, and glide down the slopes, a 
huge cascade of dazzling whiteness. In the heart 
of the valley is the Grindelwald village, at about 
thirty-four hundred feet elevation, and having a pop- 
ulation of three thousand who get their living from 
the visitors. All around, the towering, snow-covered 
mountains rise eight to ten thousand feet higher, 
conspicuous among the galaxy being the wonderful 
mass of rock and snow of the Eiger, rising sixty-three 
hundred feet almost sheer above the Pass between it 
and the Wengern Alp, and ten thousand feet above 
the village, to its snowy cone. The Schreckhorn ad- 



THE GEMMI PASS. 67 

Joins it, to the eastward, while in front as one views 
the rising sun, is the beautiful triple peak of the 
Wetterhorn, a most prominent feature of the land- 
scape. The great attractions here are the glaciers 
of the Eiger, the Guggi, and the Upper and Lower 
Grindelwald glaciers. These are well displayed and 
have many visitors, their ice grottoes and other points 
of interest being thoroughly developed. The Faul- 
horn, a somewhat lower peak, eighty-eight hundred 
feet high, north of the valley, and readily scaled, is 
ascended for the superb views it gives of all these 
great mountains, on the one side, and on the other 
of Lake Brienz, and northern and northeastern 
Switzerland, a splendid landscape of mountains, lakes 
and forests. This peak gets its name from the 
friable rock composing it, the word faul meaning 
"rotten." 

THE GEMMI PASS. 

From Interlaken as a centre, tourists visit various 
districts of Switzerland, and to reach them go out of 
the Aar valley over noted Alpine passes. Eeference 
has already been made to some of these famous roads 
in Savoy over Mt. Cenis, the St. Bernard and others. 
The Alps have many passes. A few of them are grand 
highways, crossed by fine roads and in some cases by 
railways. More of them are fit only for the plodding 
mules who go in long and patient processions carry- 
ing their burdens up the winding pathways. There 
are hundreds of routes that are mere tracks, to be fol- 



68 SWITZERLAND. 

lowed afoot, varying from the solitary ways of the 
smuggler or shepherd and cowherd to the daring and 
breakneck routes eagerly taken by the reckless mod- 
ern ilk of Alpine climbers. During long ages these 
paths have been explored and marked by the many 
generations who have lived near and crossed the 
AlpS;, thus carrying out an idea voiced in the ancient 
German proverb that "Behind the mountains there 
also are people." 

Southward from Interlaken, across the Oberland 
range, is the deepty carved gorge through which the 
Ehone flows out to Lake Leman. From the lake of 
Thun, the Gemmi Pass crosses over to Sion on the 
Ehone. It goes up the beautiful vale of the Kander, 
ascending through the narrowing glen, where the 
mountains rise abruptly from the rich green meadows 
into the towering slopes to the eastward of the Blii- 
mis Alp. Here is the romantic lateral vale of the 
Kienthal coming down the side of that great moun- 
tain amid a galaxy of peaks. At the village of Fruti- 
gen, amid the range, the Swiss make matches from 
the timber grown on the lower slopes. Farther on, 
nestling superbly in a deep glen, though at thirty- 
eight hundred feet elevation, is Kandersteg, having 
a magnificent situation. To the eastward is the noble 
group of peaks of the Bliimis Alp, culminating in 
three that are twelve thousand feet high, the north- 
ern side of the spacious group covered with snows, 
w^hile to the southward their bold cliffs adjoin the 
Kander glacier. From it the Kander descends the 



THE GEMMI PASS. 69 

wild Gastern vale in picturesque falls and rushes 
through the village. 

Here the bridle path begins, going southward and 
upward among the Altels, with the craggy Einder- 
horn, the broad Mittaghorn and the lofty Balmhorn 
in full view. Getting high above the Gastern vale, it 
reaches the Spitalmatte, a pasture at sixty-three hun- 
dred feet elevation, which the glaciers have devas- 
tated by unexpected avalanches. Then the route 
drearily winds among crags and boulders on the sum- 
mit plateau past the Daubensee, a narrow lake over 
a mile long, at a height of seventy-three hundred 
feet, fed by glaciers, generally frozen over for seven 
months in the year, and having no visible outlet. The 
path skirts its eastern bank, and a short distance 
southward, the summit of the pass is reached at 
7,640 feet elevation, the Gemmi, where there is a ho- 
tel at the northeastern base of the towering Dauben- 
horn which rises over two thousand feet higher. 
Here is given a magnificent view over the Alps all 
around and to the Monte Eosa range southward 
beyond the Ehone. This is the boundary between 
the Cantons Bern and Yalais. 

We have come into a most remarkable place. Off 
to the eastward among the glaciers of the Balmhorn, 
rises the river Dala. It cuts down a deep ravine 
along the eastern slopes of the Einderhorn and the 
Daubenhorn and goes out southward to the Ehone. 
The visitor wanders a short distance from the hotel 
and suddenlv comes to the brink of an enormous 



70 SWITZERLAND. 

precipice, having a wilderness of snowy peaks be- 
yond, and looks deeply down upon the green fields and 
woods adjoining the diminutive Dala, so far below 
that it can scarcely be traced. The brook leads far- 
ther down towards another deep trench, which is the 
great ravine of the Rhone, while rising high beyond 
it are the towering peaks of the main Alpine range, 
their glaciers and snowy slopes stretching afar — a 
most wonderful view. To see it, one looks over the 
edge of a rocky wall, sixteen hundred feet high, 
right down the face of which goes this remarkable 
Gemmi Pass. 

It is one of the strangest routes in existence, hav- 
ing been constructed during the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century in the form of a path about five feet 
wide, its windings hewn in the rock, often resembling 
a spiral stairway, the steepest parts and sharp cor- 
ners protected by parapets, and the upper portions 
in some places actually projecting beyond the lower. 
Twisting and turning in the wildest and most risky 
fashion, this breakneck path descends the front of 
the perpendicular cliff into the deep gorge, zigzag 
after zigzag, from ledge to ledge and crag to crag, 
while far below is seen the village of Leuk, which has 
been well described as viewed from above, "like a 
collection of toy houses, set out on a green cloth." 
Venturesome folk used to go down on horseback, 
but after accidents mournfully recalled by a mortu- 
ary cross, this method of descent is now forbidden. 
A slope of debris extends from the base of the cliff, 



THE GEMMI PA8IS. 71 

to the Dala, with a fringe of forest. After many 
twists and turns, always going downward, the travel- 
ler at length comes to Leuk, which has been so long 
in sight and gradually growing larger as it is neared, 
and he breathes more freely when he arrives at this 
noted watering place, which he has been over an 
hour in reaching. 

Leuk is a popular bathing place, deep down in this 
trench, which looks out southward toward the Ehone, 
and yet is forty-six hundred feet above the sea. The 
whole descent of this wonderful pass down the cliff 
is about three thousand feet, and its huge height 
rising abruptly alongside the little town presents 
a most imposing appearance. The sun does lit- 
tle shining in this deep glen, yet the grass grows 
luxuriantly and most of the pastures are fine. There 
are over twenty thermal springs, impregnated with 
lime, in these baths of Leuk, and visitors are numer- 
ous in summer, coming for treatment for cutaneous 
troubles and rheumatism. There are large public 
bathing pools in which the "course" requires the pa- 
tients to spend several hours daily, and as a method 
of whiling away the time, small trays are floated to 
them on the water, bearing cups of coffee, books and 
newspapers, while they do much talking and mostly 
in French, affording considerable amusement to the 
onlookers. High cliffs environ the glen on all sides, 
and the road down it requires skillful engineering, 
while some of the most unique methods are adopted 
in getting the "right of way" to neighboring villages. 



72 SWITZERLAND. 

In one case the route leading to the hamlet of Al- 
binen^, begins by an ascent of several rude ladders up 
the face of a precipice, along the top of which is the 
path. Weak-headed people do not travel it, however, 
although the climber gets an admirable view. The 
route down the Dala goes to Inden about three miles, 
having Albinen high above it on the rocks making 
the eastern wall of the deep gorge. Then the route 
comes out much above the Ehone valley with the town 
and railway station of Leuk, close at hand apparently, 
but the carriage road has to wind for nearly three 
miles to get down there. 

GOING TO ZERMATT. 

The valley of the Ehone above Martigny, stretches 
far northeastward between the parallel mountain 
ranges, the main chain of the Alps and the Bernese 
Oberland. It is a deep and wide intervale, with the 
river generally embanked, so that much of the sur- 
face has been reclaimed for cultivation. The lofty 
mountain walls enclosing it, have much of their 
lower slopes in favorable situations planted with 
vineyards producing good wines. There are mineral 
springs, and villages are frequent. Sixteen miles 
above Martigny are the "castled crags of Sion,^' this 
being the capital of the Canton Yalais, the approach, 
disclosing its ancient castles on the hills, being most 
picturesque, and the little river Sienne coming down 
through the town from the mountain ranges to the 



GOING TO ZER^LITT. 73 

northward. High above the valley are the ruins of 
the old bishop^s castle of Tourbillon dating from the 
thirteenth centnry and giving a splendid outlook. On 
a lower eminence is Valeria castle, and nearby Ma- 
joria castle also in ruins. Part of the latter is used 
for a military barrack, while Valeria is surrounded 
by towers and other buildings, among them the an- 
cient church of Xotre Dame de Valere, which is be- 
ing restored, parts having been built over a thousand 
years. Sierre is passed, prettily situated on a sloping 
hill, and thirty miles above Martigny, the town of 
Leuk, high above the Ehone. To the southward is 
the vast semicircular basin of the Illgraben with its 
bleak and yellowish slopes environed by a galaxy of 
high mountains. 

A dozen miles farther up the Ehone, the turbid tor- 
rent of the Visp comes out of the gorge to the south- 
ward and adds its ample current and debris to the 
greater river. Up this ravine goes the railwa}^ to 
Zermatt, its construction diversified by rack-and- 
pinion sections ascending the slopes. At the en- 
trance to the gorge is the Visp village picturesquely 
situated, and looking out southward at the head of 
the valley upon the beautiful snow-covered summits 
and slopes of the Balfrinhorn, rising nearly 12,500 
feet, apparently, to close the gorge. Ascending 
five miles farther, and five hundred feet to the vil- 
lage of Stalden, it is found that twO' torrents here 
unite to form the Visp, one coming out from each 
side of the guardian mountain, and thus the gorge 



74 SWITZERLAND. 

# 

divides. From the southeast flows the Saasser Visp 
through the romantic Saasthal, where is the fairy 
land of Saas Fee, a mountain paradise; and from the 
southwest the Matter Visp, regarded as the main 
stream, coming through the Nicolaithal. It takes 
more rack-and-pinion line, bridges, viaducts and tun- 
nels to get up this deep valley, and yet five miles far- 
ther on is St. Nicolas at thirty-seven hundred feet 
elevation beside the torrent, which goes down pictur- 
esque cascades below the village. Still following up 
the gorge, it gets among huge snow-covered moun- 
tains and glaciers, and the road finally reaches Zer- 
matt about thirt^^-two miles south of the Ehone, at 
an elevation of over fifty-three hundred feet, in an 
extraordinary location, literally in the heart of the 
Alps of the Pennine Chain, and at the head of the 
valley of the Visp. Here, despite the elevation, is a 
beautiful green valley w^here the village nestles, sur- 
rounded by mountain slopes fringed with pines, while 
high above its southern verge is the dazzling Theo- 
dule glacier, having on one side the massive Breit- 
horn and on the other the huge pyramidal top of the 
Matterhorn. Three mountain glens unite at Zermatt 
to form the Matter Vispthal. Glaciers almost wholly 
occupy two of them, as only a short distance inter- 
venes between the comparatively level greensward at 
the village and the great . ice streams which sweep 
down from the range of the Pennines, dominated by 
Monte Eosa, surrounding them with a vast amphi- 
theatre of snowy slopes and rocky summits. The 



THE PENNINE M0NARCH8. 75 

third glen coming in from the westward, is the 
Zmutthal, stretching about six miles up into the moun- 
tains, before reaching the foot of its glacier. 

THE PENNINE MONARCHS. 

Southward from Zermatt is the high plateau of the 
Riffelberg, generally at about eighty-four hundred 
feet elevation, and up to it goes another rack-and- 
pinion railway with electric power, which has the rep- 
utation of being the highest in Europe, its average 
gradient being about one in six. This route, extend- 
ing about four miles, discloses splendid views along 
the gorges of the Visp and its tributaries, climbs 
three thousand feet higher than the village, and then 
in about two miles farther, goes up fifteen hundred 
feet more to the eminence of the Gorner Grat, the 
culminating summit ridge at the edge of the Eiffel- 
berg. Around the southern base of this broad pla- 
teau winds from east to west the huge Gorner Gla- 
cier, joined in its progress by a half-dozen other gla- 
ciers, their united mass dissolving into the waterri 
which at the termination of the ice-field in the mo- 
raine south of Zermatt, make the head stream of the 
Matter Yisp. The top of the Gorner Grat rises about 
four hundred feet above the terminus of the railway, 
and here on the southern verge of the Reffelberg, at 
10,290 feel elevation, is given one of the most mag- 
nificent views in the Alps, the spectator surrounded 
by snow-peaks and glaciers, with the noble Matter- 
horn, "the lion of Zermatt," dominating the scene. 



76 SWITZERLAND. 

Beneath one's feet is the broad ice stream of the 
Gorner Glacier imperceptibly flowing, and across it 
rise the massive mountains where its frozen tribu- 
taries are formed. There is on the left, toward the 
southeast and farthest off, the coronet of peaks of 
Monte Eosa, the highest rising 15,217 feet, but from 
their distance, while this is the most elevated of all, 
the view is less imposing. Then to the southward is 
the wedge-shaped mass of the Lyskamm, 14,890 feet; 
then the Zwillinge, the snowy twins of Castor and 
Pollux, rising almost perfect cones; and the long and 
craggy mass of the white-topped Breithorn, 13,685 
feet. In a depression off to the southwest, are ter- 
raced the branches of the broad Theodule Glacier, 
and across it to the westward rises the most splendid 
sight in all the grand view, the isolated and marvel- 
lous Matterhorn, elevated 14,780 feet. This peak is 
most impressively displayed, an obelisk of snow and 
rock rising four thousand feet above the surrounding 
terraces and thus magnificently dominating the won- 
derful scene. Beyond, extends another company of 
giant peaks, forming the western verge of the deeply 
carved Vispthal, spreading widely around to the 
northwest, from the dazzling Dent Blanche to the 
Weisshorn, the former rising 14,320 feet and the lat- 
ter 14,800 feet. Next comes a depression, and 
through it may be seen the distant snowy summits 
beyond the Rhone, of some of the peaks of the Ber- 
nese Oberland. Farther around, and to the north- 
ward, beyond the Eiffelberg plateau, rise conspicu- 



Mattermorn 



THE PENNINE MONARCHS. 77 

ously the two sharply defined pyramids of the de- 
tached range enclosed by the two branches of the 
Visp, the Dom, 14,942 feet and the Tashhorn, 14,478 
feet, with numerous snow-covered attendants at lower 
elevations. And finally the view covers others to the 
northeast, and the complete circle is finished at the 
Cima di Jazzi, off to the eastward beyond the Grorner 
Glacier, whose spurs intermingle with those of Monte 
Eosa. 

The Alps provide no elevated spot accessible with 
equal ease, which commands a grander panoramic 
view around the whole impressive circle of mountains. 
From the snowy hump of the Cima di Jazzi, which is 
also readily reached, there is a view over the great 
snow-fields feeding the glaciers, and also of the south- 
ern slopes toward Italy, of these Pennine Alps, with 
Lake Maggiore and the Plains of Lombardy in the 
distance, though often obscured by mists. The view 
of Monte Eosa from the Gorner Grat is somewhat 
disappointing, being too much enclosed b}^ other 
peaks. Its best northern view is farther westward 
from the lower level of the Zermatt vale, where it 
rises ten thousand feet above the grazing fields along- 
side the stream. The grandest view of the monarch, 
however, is from the Italian side, towering sheer 
above the deep valley of Macugnaga, more than two 
miles high, in inaccessible precipices of rock and 
broken slopes of snow and glacier. 

The first climbing of these mountains around Zer- 
matt has made some of the greatest achievements of 



78 SWITZERLAND. 

the xllpine explorers during the last half of the nine- 
teenth century, prominent among the early scalers of 
the summits being Messrs. Tyndall and Whymper. 
Long after the top of Mont Blanc had been reached, 
that of Monte Eosa and its four peaks remained un- 
visited. It was first ascended in 1855. The crest of 
the highest summit is narrow and steep, with jagged 
rocks and intervening ridges of snow, that slope quite 
steeply. The sight from the summit, all around the 
horizon is of vast extent and magnificence, combin- 
ing the Alpine range in both directions, and the 
broad Plains of Lombardy gradually melting away 
into the southern horizon, while by the aid of a tele- 
scope, the lofty Milan Cathedral can be traced, though 
this is rare, as usually a veil of mist conceals the 
Plains and the mountain ranges enclosing Lake Mag- 
giore. 

The Matterhorn is not as high as Eosa, but it is 
the grandest peak in all this assemblage. It rises a 
stupendous pyramid above the surrounding summits 
and glaciers, and as seen from the Zmutt vale, looks 
like a ponderous bastion tower at the termination of 
a long ascending curtain wall of rock. For precipi- 
tous steepness and solitary grandeur it is unique in 
the Alpine galaxy. Many vain attempts had been 
made to scale the summit, until finally it was success- 
fully reached, July 14, 1865, by a party of seven, Mr. 
Whymper, three companions and three guides. They 
went up the eastern wall to the bastion, and found it 
composed of steep slabs of rock much like the slates 



THE PENNINE MONARCHS. 79 

on a roof, patched with portions of ice and snow, and 
giving little chance to hold on. They climbed it, 
however, and then crossed the less inclined snowy 
slope to the summit. 

When they descended there was an appalling catas- 
trophe. They returned to the slabs, in single file, 
the whole party tied together, with Mr. Whymper 
at the rear between two guides. Suddenly one of 
those in front lost his footing and in falling pulled 
down three others. The guide just before Mr. Whym- 
per managed to retain his foothold, but the rope in 
front of him broke, and the four who had fallen slid 
down the slope and in an instant had disappeared 
over the brink of a precipice. The cliffs below were 
almost perpendicular and they fell to the snows bor- 
dering the glacier about four thousand feet beneath. 
After much danger, Mr. Whymper and the two guides 
managed to get down, reaching Zermatt the following 
day. The bodies were ultimately found and some of 
them are buried in the little Zermatt churchyard, 
where are also the tombs of other too venturesome 
Alpine climbers. There are frequent ascents of the 
Matterhorn now made and the path to the summit 
has been protected. The top is an almost level ridge 
about three hundred feet long, and from it the view 
is marvellous over mountains and glaciers in every 
direction and often a mile below, while the green 
fields and houses of Zermatt nestle in the glen, with 
fringes of pines, and a wilderness of rocks, ice and 
snow all around. 



80 SWITZERLAND. 

To the northward of the Matterhorn and north- 
west from Zermatt rises the Weisshorn, 14,804 feet, 
regarded now as probably the most difficult and dan- 
gerous mountain in this region to scale. -The first 
ascent accomplished, was by Prof. Tyndall, in 1861, 
who went up from Randa in the Yispthal. Now the 
favorite method of ascending is from the valley to the 
w^estward, where the guides have aided the toilsome 
journey by fixing ropes to the rocks, riveted fast to 
the faces of the worst precipices, below the summit. 
They have thus placed over a half-mile of rope, one 
inch thick. Usually, however, the climbers travelling 
this perilous route find the rope thickly encrusted 
with ice, which has to be carefully chipped off with 
their axes before they can lay hold. 

The risks of these mountain-climbers, the ava- 
lanches, and the glimpse of far-away Italy given from 
the summits, suggest the words of Longfellow in the 
Golden Legend: 

"What sound is that? The tumbling avalanches! 
How awful, yet how beautiful! These are 
The voices of the mountains! Thus they ope 
Their snowy lips, and speak unto each other, 
In the primeval language lost to man. 

"What land is this that spreads itself beneath us? 
Italy! Italy! land of the Madonna! 
How beautiful it is! It seems a garden 
Of Paradise." 



EASTERN SWITZERLAND. 



II. 

EASTERN SWITZERLAND. 

Brig — Simplon Pass and Tunnel — The Gondo Ravine — 
Domo d' Ossola — The Rhone Glacier — Furka Pass — 
Grimsel Pass — Handegg Falls — Meiringen — Lake 
Brienz — The Rothhorn — The Giessbach — Briinig Pass 

— Sarnen — Alpnach — Lake Lucerne — Lucerne — 
William Tell — The Rutli — Pilatus — Rigi — Lake of 
Zug — Morgarten — Sempach — Zurich Lake — Rap- 
perswil — Einsiedeln — Zurich — The Walensee — Vale 
of Glarus — The Todi — Artli Goldau — Schwyz — 
Brunnen — Flilelen — The Reuss — St. Gotthard Rail- 
way and Pass — Altdorf — Amsteg — Goschenen — 
Wasen — The Ticino — Lake Lucendro — Val Tremola 

— Val Levantina — Airolo — Biaschina Ravine — Bel- 
linzona — San Bernardino Pass — Spliigen Pass — 
Campodolcino — Chiavenna — Julier Pass — Albula 
Pass — Lunghino Lake — The River Inn — The Enga- 
dine — Lake of Sils — Silvaplana Lake — St. Moritz 

— The Bernina — Samaden — Maloja Pass — Stelvio 
Pass — The Ortler — Three Holy Springs — The Adda 

— Val Valtellina — Lake of Como — Varenna — Bella- 
gio — Lecco — Cadenabbia — Tremezzo — Tomo — Cer- 
nobbio — Como — Lake Varese — Lake Maggiore — 
Laveno — Locarno — Luino — Pallanza — Arona — 
Borromean Islands — Lake of Orta — Lake Lugano — 
Lugano — Monte Salvatore — Porlezza — Monte Generoso. 

THE SIMPLON. 

We have advanced in the preceding chapter up the 
deep and narrow Rhone valley into the heart of the 



84 SWITZERLAND. 

Alps, under the shadows of the towering Pennine 
range. About five miles above Visp, where the 
torrent conies out to the Ehone from Zermatt and its 
mountains, is the little town of Brig. Here flows in 
the Saltine torrent coming northward from the Pen- 
nines. It is about seventy-two miles up the Ehone 
from the Lake of Geneva, and forty-seven miles from 
Martigny, and the huge mountains closely compress 
the Ehone on either side, leaving but a profound and 
contracted gorge, where the river, during the ages, 
has forced a passage. Brig, while small, is noted, for 
here begins the most famous, and one of the best 
known roadways over the Alps, the Simplon, where 
Napoleon constructed the first macadamized and per- 
fect highway across the mountains, begun in 1800 
and completed for military purposes in 1806, at a cost 
of $3,500,000. This had been a mountain pass, much 
travelled, for centuries, and in Brig is the most exten- 
sive private residence in Switzerland, the Stockalper 
Chateau, handsomely turreted and built around an 
interior court. This house was erected by Kaspar 
Stockalper, who, in the seventeenth century, con- 
trolled the traffic over the Simplon, which he pro- 
tected by armed guards. Brig has always been a 
centre of much travel, the routes up the Ehone from 
Martigny, and coming down that valley by the Grim- 
sal and Furka passes over from the Lake Lucerne 
and the St. Gotthard region, concentrating here, for 
the easiest route into Italy as things used to be. The 
Simplon road, which is the route from Geneva to 



THE S1MFJ.ON. 85 

Milan, goes over from Brig to Domo d' Ossola, about 
forty-six miles, and crosses the summit of the pass at 
about sixty-six hundred feet elevation. 

The route is up the Saltine, but the ascent from 
Brig is rather tame, compared with some other passes 
on the Swiss side, the grandest scenery being on the 
Italian side. It is kept open as a winter route, and 
refuge huts are built at intervals. Twenty miles from 
Brig is Simplon, whence comes its name, built among 
the pastures at the base of the towering Eossboden- 
horn which rises 13,128 feet and about eighty-three 
hundred feet above the village. From the summit of 
the pass there is revealed a splendid view to the 
northward across the Rhone valley to the Bernese 
Oberland. The crossing in summer time is warm and 
sunny, developing the pastures around the old hos- 
pice, now occupied by shepherds, and the adjacent 
fields usually display flocks of cattle and goats. En- 
closing this region, the superb peaks of Monte Leone 
and the Fletschhorn, with the Rossbodenhorn elevate 
their extensive glaciers far toward the heavens. It is 
after passing the Simplon village that the magnifi- 
cence of the Pass begins. There comes a little brook 
out of a glacier, the Laquinbach. It falls into the 
Krummbach near Algaby hamlet, and below this 
becomes known as the Doveria, a famous stream. 
Then appears the wonder of the Pass, a vast cleft 
cut down deeply into the mountain, the Gondo ra- 
vine, one of the grandest gorges of the Alps. For 
several miles the descent is through this tremendous 



86 SWITZERLAND. 

fissure, always noisy witli the sound of falling waters. 
The tunnels and galleries of Algaby and Gondo pierce 
the rocks, many bold viaducts span the lateral ra- 
vines, a long tunnel goes through a huge cliff block- 
ing the passage, and then the road crosses a slender 
bridge over the Alpienbach fall, with cliffs rising 
two thousand feet on either side, the spray of the 
cascade wafted on high through the fissure. Thus 
we come to Gondo, the last Swiss village, where the 
tall square Stockalper Tower was long a refuge for 
the traveller in the days of that powerful family. 
The Italian frontier is just beyond, marked by a 
granite column, and then the first little Italian vil- 
lage is reached, Paglino. All seems desolation in the 
gorge, however, until, emerging from a tunnel, the 
route opens upon the rich green valley of Iselle. Then 
the vegetation is more luxuriant, the Doveria flows 
into the Tosa, and a magnificent view is given of the 
fertile Valle d' Ossola, watered by the Tosa, its little 
town of Domo d' Ossola, being charmingly situated at 
the head of navigation on the river which flows into 
Lake Maggiore. Thence it is but a short distance 
to Baveno or Arona on that beautiful lake, and south- 
ward to Milan. 

The Simplon route across the Alps has the general 
direction from northwest to southeast. The extensive 
travel over it caused the great Simplon tunnel to be 
planned some time ago, the most ambitious project 
for piercing the Alps, and the longest tunnel in the 
world, about twelve and one-quarter miles. It goes 



THE 81MPL0N. 87 

from the Rhone about a mile and one-half above 
Brig, southeastward to a point just beyond Iselle, 
and work is progressing from both sides of the moun- 
tain range. It was begun in 1898, and in 1903, nearly 
eleven miles had been bored, and the estimated cost 
of the whole enterprise is about $14,000,000. The 
project embraces two parallel tunnels, although one 
only with a single railway track is being now com- 
pleted. The width is sixteen feet, the height seven- 
teen and one-half feet, and the two tunnels are to be 
about fifty-six feet apart and connected by cross tun- 
nels at distances of one-eighth of a mile. The north- 
ern entrance on the Ehone is at an elevation of 2,253 
feet, and the tunnel ascends by an easy gradient to 
2,312 feet at a distance of about five and one-half 
miles within the mountain. It is level for a short 
distance and then descends by a somewhat steeper, 
though still easy gradient, six and one-half miles to 
the Italian entrance near Iselle, at 2,155 feet eleva- 
tion. The headings are bored by very powerful ro- 
tary boring machines continuously driven by hy- 
draulic power. The centre of the tunnel is about six 
thousand feet beneath the crest of the mountain,, 
east of the Wasenhorn summit, which is one of the 
conspicuous peaks to the eastward of the road across 
the Pass. The Simplon Tunnel pierces the range at 
a very much lower elevation than the others, the 
Mont Cenis tunnel being at an altitude of 4,248 feet, 
the Arlberg, 4,300 feet, and the St. Gotthard, 3,788 
feet, so that the gradient favors the traffic. 



88 SWITZERLAND. 

The second and parallel tunnel is being partially 
constructed of smaller size, ten feet wide and eight 
feet high for ventilation, transport of materials and 
similar uses. The rock pierced is very hard, granite 
and gneiss, with veins of white quartz. The farther 
the tunnel borings penetrate, the higher is the tem- 
perature, and this and the large amount of water 
coming through the rocky mass above, are the chief 
obstacles. Artificial methods of successful ventila- 
tion have, however, been put -into operation, reduc- 
ing the temperature. The water which comes down 
from the summit of the mountain, is the chief cause 
of the heat. It pen<etrates through limestone and 
gets in some parts to 133°, thus heating up the 
tunnel. The ventilating systems turn cold air upon 
the hot air and cold water upon the hot water, thus 
reducing the temperature to about 70°. This cool air 
is sent right up to the points where the men are 
working the drills. Huge streams of water flowing 
out of the tunnel furnish the motive power both for 
refrigeration by means of high-pressure water-spray, 
and to work the drills, which are three inches in di- 
ameter, rotate slowly and keep working continuously 
under a hydraulic pressure of fifteen hundred pounds 
to the square inch, or about ten tons on the cutting 
points of the drills. The largest stream of water 
flows out of the Italian entrance, which is the lowest. 
There have been usually about three thousand work- 
men employed in the tunnel, working on eight-hour 
shifts, who live in villages at either end, while from 



UPPER RHONE, FURKA, GRIMSEL. 89 

Iselle a railway is being constructed at Arona on Lake 
Maggiore, to connect with the direct route to Milan. 
The hope is for completion of the tunnel in 1904. 

THE UPPER RHONE^ THE FURKA, THE GRIMSEL. 

The river Khone, above Brig, comes down its fis- 
sure-like valley, a torrent between the high mountain 
ranges, for thirty miles from the great Ehone Gla- 
cier, its source. Not far from Brig, the Massa pours 
in from the northward, bringing the waters of the ex- 
tensive Aletsch Glacier. As the Ehone is ascended, 
there are frequent villages with orchards and mead- 
ows, and occasional ruined castles. The little ham- 
let of Fiesch is on the bank of the Fieschbach in a 
pretty situation, and to the northward rises the tow- 
ering Eggishorn, 9,625 feet, the most elevated sum- 
mit of the ridge separating the Aletsch Glacier from 
the Ehone valley, this peak giving a grand view both 
ways, over the Bernese mountains and the main Al- 
pine range, disclosing much of the Simplon route 
and the more distant valley of the Yisp toward Zer- 
matt. In the ten miles above Fiesch to Mlinster, the 
Rhone passes various villages, a grand mountain 
stream, and pouring over some startling cascades and 
rapids, descends a thousand feet. Deep ravines fur- 
row the precipitous sides of the valle}^ and this re- 
gion is peculiarly susceptible to avalanches in the 
spring when the snows are melting. Several severe 
ones occurred in April, 1904, after a protracted. 



90 SWITZERLAND. 

period of warm weather and rains. One at Gren- 
giols, just below Fiesch overwhelmed five houses and 
buried twenty persons on April 19, and about the 
same time another at Miihlebach, a short distance 
above, swept over the village with resistless force at 
two o'clock in the morning, crushed several cottages 
and killed thirteen of the sleeping inhabitants. Fre- 
quent torrents coming down the ravines on both sides 
bring in the discharges of many glaciers from the 
high mountains all around. Above are yet more vil- 
lages, and the infant Ehone dashes through a deep 
ravine fringed with firs. Six miles farther is Ober- 
wald, at the bottom of the broad green valley of the 
Upper Yalais, enclosed by enormous mountain 
ranges, the village being at five thousand feet eleva- 
tion. Four miles beyond is the source of the infant 
Ehone issuing from a beautiful vault of blue ice at 
the termination of the great glacier and about fifty- 
eight hundred feet above the sea level. This vast 
Rhone Glacier ascends in terraces for about six miles, 
and is on the western slope of the St. Gotthard. High 
mountains encompass both sides, rising from 10,500 
to 12,000 feet. This noted glacier, like all others in 
the Alps, is, however, slowly shrinking. The valley 
below, strewn with debris and having grass amid the 
moraines, a few centuries ago was more than half- 
filled with the glacier, which has gradually receded. 

The shrinkage of the Alpine glaciers has given the 
European electric engineers some fear lest this source 
►of energy for power may at some time seriously di- 



UPPER RHONE, FURKA, GRIMSEL. 91 

minish. The torrents they produce have been well 
utilized for man}' purposes and thus the ice has been 
somewhat romantically described as "white coal/' At 
the termination of the Khone Glacier, three great 
mountain roads join. We have come up the valley on 
the route from Martigny and the Simplon, and here 
it divides. Toward the northeast the road through 
the famous Furka Pass, crossing the summit at over 
eighty-one hundred feet elevation, leads to Ander- 
matt and Lake Lucerne, while to the northwest the 
Grimsel Pass is crossed to Meiringen, Lake Brienz 
and Interlaken. The new carriage road over the 
Furka was completed in 1867, and ascends from the 
Gletsch, as the valley below the Rhone Glacier is 
called, on its southern side, mounting in zigzags high 
above the fantastic ice masses to cross the summit, 
about seven miles distant. This is Furka, and is 
strongly fortified, being in a saddle between high 
ranges on both sides. Then, amid huge glaciers, some 
of them with, enormous crevasses, hundreds of feet 
deep, the top of the pass is crossed and the descent 
made on that side to Andermatt, and thence by the 
St. Gotthard route to Lake Lucerne. This road was 
constructed mainly for military purposes as the most 
convenient route to the Yalais from northern Switz- 
erland. 

The Grimsel Pass crosses the mountain range be- 
tween the Rhone valley and the Aar, at seventy-one 
hundred feet elevation. This range is a steep and 
comparatively narrow ridge, having the Rhone flow- 



92 SWITZERLAND. 

ing southwestward on its southern side, and the Aar 
in the opposite northeasterly direction and then 
northwestward on the other side. The Grimsel road 
mounts in zigzags from the Gletsch up the steep 
slope of the Maienwang, to the northward, and gives 
a fine view over the Rhone gorge. It is a toilsome 
climb to a wild and dreary region, where scant Al- 
pine herbage alone relieves the desert of barren rock. 
Ice-worn crags, and summits patched with show, are 
all around, while amid them lies the sombre Todten- 
see, or "Lake of the Dead,^' recalling the struggle be- 
tween the Austrians and the French in 1799 for con- 
trol of the Pass, the fighting going on all around this 
gloomy lake, into which the bodies of the dead sol- 
diers were thrown. The Austrians then held the 
Ehone valley and the Pass, and the French came up 
the Aar through the Hasli-thal to attack them. The 
French, aided by a flank movement over the moun- 
tains, drove the Austrians out and down to the 
Ehone, holding possession afterward. 

To the westward are the great glaciers where the 
Aar has its source, and crossing the summit we 
leave Valais and return to Canton Bern. Here the 
scene quickly changes. We are on the brink of what 
seems like a huge cauldron. The smooth ice-worn 
rock wall goes down about seven hundred feet almost 
perpendicularly to another sombre little lake amid 
crags and patches of herbage. This is the Grimsel 
Lake, an expansion of the Aar, and alongside its 
western end, about a thousand feet below the sum- 



UPPER RHONE, FURKA, GRIMSEL. 93 

mit of the Pass, is the massive graystone building of 
the Grimsel Hospice. The Aar comes along amid the 
adjacent cliffs, flows into the lake, and its exit is in- 
conspicuous among more rocks in a region of the wild- 
est dreariness. The little brawling river then goes off 
toward the northwest down through a constantly 
deepening ravine, and seen afar through the opening 
are some of the snowy peaks of the Bernese Oberland. 
This old Grimsel Hospice, anciently was a religious 
foundation on the Pass, but is now an inn, having 
been disestablished long ago. The Austrians de- 
stroyed it when they were driven out in 1799. It was 
rebuilt, and then an avalanche crushed the roof, while 
shortly afterward a disappointed landlord burnt it. 
Surviving these perils, however, it still exists, dreary 
at all times, and almost desolate in the winter, though 
always kept open for the traveller, who may cross the 
mountain by this path. The massive glaciers forming 
the headwaters of the x\ar, fill all , the depressions in 
the mountain slopes to the westward and behind them 
rises the ponderous form of the highest peak of the 
Oberland, the Finsteraarhorn, 14,025 feet. It is dif- 
ficult of ascent, but is often scaled. These glaciers 
are among the first that were studied by scientists, 
and to assist in the examination, the Pavilion Doll- 
fuss was erected alongside the northern edge of the 
Lauteraar glacier, at 7,675 feet elevation. Farther 
west where this and the Finisteraar glacier unite to 
form the Unteraar glacier, the Swiss naturalist, 
Hugi, built a hui^ in 1827, while he made observa- 



94 SWITZERLAXD. 

tions, at 8/286 feet elevation. This was occupied 
by Agassiz and others in 1841 and later, and they also 
built another hut on the medial moraine, but both 
huts have disappeared. A rock in the glacier oppo- 
site the second hut vras marked during these observa- 
tions by Stengel in 1844, and others, and was again 
discovered in 1884, about a mile and a half below 
that place, and it was recently opposite the Pavilion 
Dollfuss, farther below, showing the rate of progress 
of the glacier. 

Beyond the Hospice, the Aar rushes foaming down 
a narrow glen, with the path crossing and recrossing 
on rude bridges. The ice-worn rocks make steep and 
slippery slopes across which the route is notched out, 
the glacier friction having worn them. The floor of 
the valley is barren and strewn with boulders, but we 
get down to a region of rather more vegetation, and 
entering the forest upon the lower slopes, come to a 
scene of savage grandeur, at the famous Handegg 
Falls. This cascade of the Aar, leaps about two 
hundred and fifty feet, into a narrow ravine amid the 
rocks, from which daylight is almost excluded and out 
of which come clouds of spray. The stream falls 
about halfway unbroken, and then rebounding from 
the cliffs, makes the mass of spray. A second torrent 
tumbles in from the side of the gulf, the silvery ^^r- 
lenbach, mingling its bright stream with the gray gla- 
cier waters of the Aar. The road is tunnelled through 
the rocks and from a terrace above there is a fine 
view of the cataract, while another good view is given 



MEIRINGEN TO LUCERNE. 95 

near the falls below. From here the route goes down 
from the Handegg Saddle, through the Hasli-Thal, 
following the Aar closely, in a better region. This 
valley is divided into the Upper and Lower Hasli, 
by the great ridge of the Kirchet, through which the 
Aar has cut a famous gorge, over a mile long, the road 
winding over the top of the ridge, where granite blocks 
are scattered among the trees on the hill slopes. The 
route descends the northern slope in long windings, 
rejoins the Aar and soon leads to the ancient town 
of Meiringen. Here flows in from the southwest the 
Eeichenbach, descending from the glaciers of the 
Wellborn and the Wetterhorn, and coming down a 
series of attractive cascades through wild gorges just 
before reaching the Aar valley. 

MEIRINGEJT TO LUCERNE. 

The little town of Meiringen, the chief settlement 
of the Hasli vale, on the Aar about seven miles above 
Lake Brienz, is both ancient and modern. They tell 
us that its original people were among the first com- 
ers into Switzerland, with the exodus hither from 
Scandinavia, But the old toAvn was almost entirely 
burnt down in 1891, and has since been rebuilt w^th 
modern improvements. It stands in a wide intervale 
surrounded by mountains, and the Aar rushes along 
in front of the town through the deposits of debris 
which have been made during the ages by that tor- 
rent and its tributaries, for the head of Lake Brienz 



96 SWITZERLAND. 

was formerty above here but has been gradually filled 
up. There was once a powerful castle at Meiringen, 
and its massive tower now stands alongside the 
church, both of them having been repeatedly dug out 
of the debris brought down by the Alpbach, a most 
vigorous tributary which has been recently embanked 
to protect the neighboring buildings. At Meiringen 
begins the road over the Brunig Pass, from the Aar 
valley to Lake Lucerne. Down the bank of the Aar, 
another road and railway go along the mountain sides 
to Brienz at the head of the lake. This village is the 
centre of the Bernese Oberland wood carving, and 
has the "Wood Carving School,^^ most of the people 
being devoted to that work, as they also are in Meir- 
ingen. Here are made myriads of toys, and especi- 
ally the miniature representatives of the bears, en- 
gaged in every conceivable occupation, which are sent 
all over the world. The cottages also show excellent 
illustrations of decorative wood-carving and display 
pretty little window gardens on the broad sills. 

The lake of Brienz is enclosed by lofty mountains, 
so that its shores are mostly steep cliffs. The Bri- 
enz village spreads more than a mile along the bank 
upon an intervale of green pastures and orchards out 
through which come a couple of mountain torrents, 
which pour down cataracts over the high Brienzer Grat 
behind, a towering ridge culminating in the summit 
of the Eothhorn, rising 7,715 feet. Up to the top 
ascends a rack-and-pinion railway, with a gradient, 
sometimes as much as one in four, and nearly five 



MEIRINGEN TO LUCERNE. 97 

miles long, with various viaducts and tunnels, going 
around the mountain sides in the ascent so that 
there is a superb view in all directions. There is an 
inn at the top, and here a triangular stone is set 
upon the pinnacle of the mountain, which marks the 
point where come together the three Cantons of 
Bern, Lucerne and Unterwalden. To the southward 
across the lake, cut into the dark face of the moun- 
tain like a white thread, is the Giessbach Fall. 

The great ridge of the Schwarzhorn, 9,613 feet high, 
far outtopping the Eothhorn, dominates the southern 
side of Lake Brienz, though at some distance back 
from the shore, which is composed of high and pre- 
cipitous cliffs. Upon the Schwarzhorn northern slope 
the Giessbach rises, a stream of great volume at all 
seasons, and coming out to the edge of the cliff, it 
descends about a thousand feet to the lake, falling in 
a series of seven cascades, down which it leaps over 
crags and through the woods. About five hundred 
feet above the lake there is a small level surface large 
enough for a hotel, and up to this place from the 
steamboat landing go a zigzag road and cable rail- 
way. The great attraction is the evening illumina- 
tion of the Falls, and they are thus shown from top to 
bottom in changing colors and make a splendid scenic 
display. The daylight view of the broken line of 
foam, coming down the successive cascades and bor- 
dered by dark-green foliage, is very beautiful, while 
the roar of the waters is a constant lullaby at night. 
At the top, the stream, pouring out of a sombre ra- 

7 



98 SWITZERLAND. 

vine in the mountain^ begins its descent by falling 
into an abyss nearly two hundred feet deep. There 
is a fine outlook also over the long and comparatively 
narrow Lake Brienz. 

The route across the Brunig Pass from Meiringen 
to Lucerne, is one of the most travelled in Switzer- 
land and is about twenty-eight miles long. The sum- 
mit of the Pass is at about thirty-three hundred feet 
elevation, the first ascent being over fourteen hun- 
dred feet from the Aar at Meiringen. A narrow 
gauge railway has been constructed between the cities, 
with rack-and-pinion attachments to get over the 
mountain top. The route rises steeply on the rocky 
cliffs enclosing the northern side of the Aar valley, 
and in three miles reaches the summit at Brunig; 
then turning northeast, it begins the descent toward 
Lucerne, and comes to the pretty Lake Lungren, and 
then to the larger Sarner See. Much of the former 
has been drained into the latter so as to reclaim part 
of the shores. The people all along the route are 
wood-carvers, while some of them work the horns and 
hoofs of the chamois goat into attractive keepsakes. 
They are devoted also to the bears and to the memory 
of William Tell, most of the inns being named after 
one or the other, the "Gasthaus Teir^ usually having 
set up in front a finely carved image of the hero 
shooting the apple from his son's head. The road 
descends the northern slope of the Kaiserstuhl to 
Giswil, beyond which the surface becomes compara- 
tively level, skirting the Sarner See. The village 



.Ck..; 



MEIRINGEN TO LUCERNE. 99 

of Sarnen is one of the capitals of Unterwalden, and 
in its Eathhans are portraits of all its magistrates 
for five centuries, and also of St. Mkolaus von der 
Fllie, the patron saint of the forest cantons enclosing 
Lake Lucerne, whose portrait or image, familiarly 
known as "Brother Klaus," is found in nearly every 
peasant's cottage. The Melch Aa flowing from the 
pleasant Melch Yale to the eastward into the Sarner 
See, drains the region sacred to his memory. In the 
fifteenth century, he lived in a little hermitage at 
Eanft a short distance up the stream, the tradition 
being that he subsisted on the sacramental elements 
of which he partook monthly. He kept the Swiss 
leaders from quarrelling after they had defeated 
Charles the Bold, and d3dng in 1487 his memory is 
the most revered of all the saints in this region. The 
route comes out at Alpnach, on the Alpnacher arm of 
Lake Lucerne, and then is constructed along the bank 
of the lake around the broad base of Mount Pilatus 
to the city of Lucerne. Forests of fine trees fringe 
all the mountain slopes, and there are long timber 
slides that shoot the logs down to the water. Little 
saw-mills are numerous, their primitive wheels turned 
by the torrents. Thus, with magnificent views over 
the water at the grand mountains enclosing this fa- 
mous lake, we reach the river Reuss, its outlet and the 
noted city of Lucerne, which is so splendidly located 
on its western shore. This is one of the most charm- 
ing spots in Switzerland, its gorgeous outlook admired 
by all visitors. 

LofC. 



100 SWITZERLAND. 



THE LAKE OF LUCERNE. 

The four forest cantons of Lucerne, TJri, Schwyz 
and Unterwalden, enclose the most magnificent lake 
in Switzerland, which has thus got its familiar home 
title of the Yierwaldstatter See, or the "Lake of the 
Four Forest Cantons." Its form is almost a St. An- 
drew's cross and the surface is 1,435 feet above the 
sea. It is about twent3^-three miles long from the 
head at Fluellen where the Upper Eeuss comes out 
of the gorge leading down from the St. Gotthard, to 
Lucerne at its foot, where the clear and emerald green 
Eeuss rushes out a torrent seeking the Aar and 
thence the Rhine. The arms or transepts of the lake 
spread widely out toward Alpnach at the southwest 
and Kussnacht at the northeast. The lake to the 
eastward is compressed by the ponderous bases of the 
Eigi and the Biirgenstock, whose two long ridges or 
"noses" make a narrow strait, and then the lake is 
prolonged farther eastward, and around a sharp angle 
to the southward into the long and narrow ITrner 
See or Lake of Uri, which is the deepest portion and 
is enclosed between very high mountains., On all 
sides, this noted Lake Lucerne, having every variety 
of shape and shore, is surrounded by noble summits 
and splendid heights, so that the landscape displayed 
from the quays of Lucerne, fronting southeastward, 
up the lake is one of the grandest in the world. It is 



THE LAKE OF LUCERNE. 101 

the form of this lake, given by the mountain peaks 
and ridges enclosing, which has placed the cross of 
St. Andrew in the Swiss national flag. 

From the quays at Lucerne, the visitor looks out 
upon an enchanting scene of green water and moun- 
tain slope, with forty-two Alpine peaks in full view. 
On the left hand, Kigi mounts up against the sky, 
and on the right, Pilatus, with its serrated and jag- 
ged top. The former rises nearly a mile above the 
water, and the latter is higher, while between them, 
and afar off over the beautiful waters of the lake, 
are seen the more distant mountain peaks, many of 
them dazzlingly white as the sunlight falls upon 
their snow}^ caps. Clouds float over the water below 
the summits, and one white fleece after another ob- 
scures the nearer Rigi, the hotels on the top being 
one moment hidden, and the next in full view. Little 
steamboats course over the lake; tiny rowboats and 
skiffs glide upon the surface, with flocks of swans and 
waterfowl; and as the night approaches, the shore 
lights up with hundreds of gleaming lamps, making 
the scene a glimpse of fair3^-land. With this great 
attraction. Lucerne has become a city of hotels and 
lodging houses, with the tourists of the world pay- 
ing tribute to the lucky landlords who control this 
beautiful place. 

Lucerne has about thirty thousand permanent pop- 
ulation dwelling along and near the Tai[)id Reuss, 
which is crossed by seven bridges, and the adjacent 
lake shores; and most of them gain their subsistence, 



102 SWITZERLAND. 

as in fact do the greater part of the Swiss population, 
from the tourists. This is the Eoman Lucerna^ or 
the "light house/' and the original and traditional 
lighthouse still stands down in the river, the an- 
cient Wasserthurm, or "Water Tower. This old 
tower, with its peaked top, has been the storehouse 
of the city archives from the days of Swiss indepen- 
dence until now, and it is looked upon with the rev- 
erence of an Independence Hall, and contains pre- 
cious relics and curiosities. Xearby the old-time 
winding foot-bridge, the Kapellbriicke, crosses the 
river obliquely. It is covered with a high peaked 
roof, and the boards across the rafters beneath are 
painted with scenes from Swiss history and from the 
lives of the patron saints, Leodegar and ^lauritius, 
who guard the town. Another old-time bridge crosses 
farther down, also at an angle with a bend at mid- 
stream, and is similarly ornamented, the paintings 
on both, however, being weather-worn. There are 
ancient survivals everywhere in this picturesque city, 
and it is surrounded by venerable walls with watch- 
towers dating from the fourteenth century. The spa- 
cious quays fronting the lake are planted with trees 
and made most attractive to the visitors who thus en- 
joy the grand outlook. Xear the Quai ^^ationale, on 
higher ground is the old Hofkirche of St. Leodegar, 
said to have been founded in the seventh century, its 
two slender towers having been built four centuries 
ago, and the church restored after a fire in the seven- 
teenth centurv. The Eathhaus dates from the six- 



Spreuerbrucke and Old Mill. 



THE LAKE OF LUCERNE. 103 

teenth century, and contains a fine museum, includ- 
ing relics of the battle of Sempach, where Arnold of 
Winkelried "made way for liberty and died/'' and also 
has "William Tell's sword/'' though this seems of 
more modern manufacture. 

Probably the most world-wide fame of this at- 
tractive city is given by the noted "Lion of Lucerne.^' 
On the heights to the northward some distance from 
the lake shore, there are perpendicular walls of sand- 
stone, looking much as if they had been chiselled 
out, nature has made their faces so true. On one of 
these rocky tablets was sculptured, in 1821, Thor- 
waldsen's famous Lion, executed to commemorate the 
valor of the Swiss Guard, who were massacred in 
Paris in August, IT 92, in defending the Tuileries and 
the French King during the Eevolution. There were 
nearly eight hundred officers and men slain by the 
Communists, and the story, with the names of the 
officers, is inscribed on the face of the rock. Above 
is sculptured, in a grotto, a dying lion, twenty-eight 
feet in length, transfixed by a broken lance, yet still 
protecting the shield and lily of France with his paw. 
Trees and vines overhang the rock, and a spring at 
the top flows down forming a pool at the base, while 
a fountain plays in front. The Danish sculptor^s 
model is still preserved nearby. The carved images 
of this lion in wood and stone are as numerous in the 
shops of Lucerne as the bears are at Bern. 

The Lake of the Four Forest Cantons is rich in its 
historical associations, as the cradle of the Swiss 



104 SWITZERLAND. 

Confederation, and the home and scene of the tradi- 
tional exploits of William Tell. Schiller, in his drama, 
gathered the myths and stories of Tell's valor and 
exploits, and these people have cherished and adopted 
them. Skeptics have investigated, denied and 
doubted, but the Swiss will not have it that wa}^ 
Early in the last century it was boldly attempted to 
circulate a book proving the Tell tradition a myth, 
whereupon the people around this lake invoked the 
aid of their officials, the Four Cantons made a formal 
complaint to the government, all copies of the book 
were collected and burnt, and doubters no longer 
raise their voices against the reality of Tell in this 
beautiful region. Whatever others may think, the 
Swiss reverence Tell as their deliverer. 

Alpnach is proud of being the spot where Tell de- 
clined to bow to Gessler's hat and shot the apple from 
his son's head. Zurich is said to preserve the cross- 
bow with which he shot the apple. Near Klissnacht, 
on the northern arm of Lake Lucerne, upon the 
height between it and Lake Zug is the Hohle Gasse, 
the "hollow lane" of Schiller's Tell and at its upper 
end is a Tell's Chapel marking the spot where he is 
said to have shot Gessler, and an inscription and 
painting over the door depict the scene. Up the arm 
of the lake toward Fluellen, the L^rner See, in a mag- 
nificent location is Tell's Platte, a ledge of rock down 
by the waterside, the spot where Tell sprang out of 
Gessler's boat and escaped. Here also is Tell's Chapel 
recently rebuilt, Avhich is said to have been originally 



Ljon of Lucerne. 



PILATUS AND RIGI. 105 

constructed by Canton Uri in the late fourteenth 
century to commemorate the event. On the Friday 
after Easter, services are held, attended by pilgrims 
from all parts of the country, who come in brilliantly 
decorated boats. Xot far away is the Mytenstein, a 
ponderous rock bearing an inscription to Schiller, the 
*'Bard of TelV^ while farther south is the patriotic 
corner-stone of the Swiss Confederation, the Kiitli, 
on a grassy height above the lake, where three springs 
trickle out. This spot is preserved by the govern- 
ment. Its tradition is that on the night of November 
7, 1307, a small band of patriots from Uri, Schwyz 
and Unterwalden assembled h6're and solemnly took 
an oath to drive out their oppressors. The three 
springs afterward appeared where the three Confed- 
erates, Stauifacher of Schwyz, Fiirst of Uri, and Ar- 
nold Halden of the Melchthal in Unterwalden, stood 
when they took the oath. These were the leaders in 
beginning the revolution, and Tell is said to have 
married the latter's daughter, and coming into prom- 
inence later, lived until 1357. The revolt against 
Austria thus begun by the pact of the Eiitli, started 
a desultory warfare for independence, continuing 
during two centuries. 

PILATUS AND RIGI. 

The great mass of Mount Pilatus, with its serrated 
peaks, rises broadly to the southward of Lucerne, 
6,995 feet high, and about one mile above the surface 



106 SWITZERLAND. 

of the lake. It is a bold and imposing mountain, al- 
most isolated from the surrounding peaks, with woods 
and pastures on the lower slopes and rough and 
broken cliffs above, whence came its ancient name of 
Fractus Mons, or the "broken mountain." The name 
of Pilatus is modern, and is derived from the mediae- 
val suggestion of Mons Pilatus, or the "hatted moun- 
tain," there being so often a cloud covering the top. 
There is, however, a belief that here came Pontius 
Pilate in remorse, and to the northeastward is 
shown, on an adjacent height, the little Pilatus lake, 
where the dejected wanderer is said to have drowned 
himself. Like most other attractive elevations in 
Switzerland this is climbed by a railway to the hotel 
on the summit. This railway is a cog-wheel arrange- 
ment and is one of the boldest constructions in this 
remarkable country, the ascent being at an inclina- 
tion at times actually verging upon an angle of 45°, 
the average grade being forty-two feet in one hun- 
dred. There are ten summits in the group forming 
the top of Pilatus, and the railway goes up to the 
one giving the best outlook, though not the highest, 
the others being easy of access from it. There is a 
spacious plateau on top, and the view is magnificent. 
The Pilatus and Eigi, while not high mountains, 
have an advantage in scenic position which gives them 
great fame. They stand like sentinels on the north- 
ern verge of the Alps, looking out over the broad 
Plains of Switzerland on the one hand and upon the 
mountain ranges on the other, so that they are 



PILATUS AND RIGI. 107 

climbed every year by many more visitors than other 
and much higher peaks. 

Rigi, to the eastward of Lucerne, is a lower sum- 
mit, 5,905 feet, and about four-fifths of a mile above 
the surface of the lake. It stands out prominently, 
being almost entirely surrounded by the waters of 
various lakes, having Zug on the northern side, and 
two cog-wheel railways, one from Lake Lucerne and 
the other from Lake Zug, ascend to the Kulm or sum- 
mit. These roads are longer and not so boldly steep 
as the Pilatus line, the average gradients being one in 
four and one in five. So popular is the ascent of this 
mountain that there are nearly a score of hotels on 
the summit and slopes, and it has a constant stream 
of visitors all summer. The first tourist inn in Swit- 
zerland, a very modest affair, was erected by sub- 
scription, after the battle of Waterloo, on the Eigi 
summit, and opened in 1816, the landlord, Martin 
Brughi, becoming famous throughout Europe. This 
was replaced in 1848 by the oldest of the present 
hotels. The Eigi is mostly a mass of conglomerate, 
about twenty-five miles in circumference, nearly per- 
pendicular on the northern side, descending upon 
Lake Zug, but more gentle in its slopes toward Lake 
Lucerne, where large herds of cattle roam over rich 
pastures, and the lower terraces have forests and or- 
chards. The Eigi fashion in the reason is to go up 
in the afternoon, so as to Idc there for the sunrise. 
Then, whatever the weather, the blowing of Alpine 
horns rouses the people out of bed before daylight, 



108 SWITZERLAND. 

and they gather in CTO^yds on the summit to await 
the coming of the god of day. Most mornings, how- 
ever, this is a disappointment, for the Eigi and the 
mountains to the eastward are usually prolific cloud 
manufacturers. Yet when properly exhibited, this 
Eigi sunrise is a magnificent sight. 

The splendid isolation of the Eigi Kulm gives a 
view all around, the panorama covering a surface of 
plains and mountains, three hundred miles in cir- 
cumference. It is much like the sight out of a bal- 
loon. To the northward the visitor looks over the 
broad Plains of Switzerland which come down to the 
waters at the base of the mountain. There are Zur- 
ich and Basle seen far away, with the distant Jura 
and Yosges, west and northwest, and the Black For- 
est to the north; and like a map the vast surface is 
spread out, villages, cottages, roads, fields, forests, 
lakes, the outline gradually fading into the clouds at 
the horizon, much like a view over the ocean. The 
little Swiss cottages far down below, look as if they 
had been taken out of toy boxes and set alongside the 
faint brown streaks representing the roads. There 
are diminutive specks of trees on the land, and as 
small specks of boats on the water, with an occasional 
steamboat, looking like a caterpillar crawling over 
the face of the lake. Lake Lucerne is at one^s feet 
on the left and Lake Zug on the right, the latter so 
closely beneath that it seems a stone could readily 
be thrown far over into the water. The villages 
fringe the shores, and all is set out as on a chart. 



PILATUS AND RIGl. 109 

Turning to the southward the landscape is entirely 
changed. It is a view far away, over range upon 
range of mountains, with apparently no limiting hori- 
zon, but a splendid amphitheatre of one hundred and 
twenty miles of snowy peaks. At least two hundred 
summits lift their heads, many snow-covered, and all 
presenting the most rugged sky-line that can be im- 
agined, and with the roughest possible intervening 
country. There is water on this side, but only very 
little, a part of Lake Lucerne, at the foot of the 
mountain, and two or three small isolated ponds amid 
the peaks, so that it is essentially a view of moun- 
tains rearing their tops high above you and above the 
clouds. There are the Jungfrau and her attendants 
of the Bernese Oberland, and the more distant sum- 
mits of the main Alpine range beyond the Ehone, 
making a mountain view that is unspeakably grand. 
The Eigi summit is without trees, and scant of ver- 
dure, but there are nooks where the grass is luxuri- 
ant, and the small hairy Alpine cattle and the brows- 
ing goats seem to feed contentedly. 

The Lake of Zug is a picturesque sheet of water 
surrounded bv hills and dominated bv Eiffi on the 
south. Woods and pastures cover the slopes, and the 
smallest Swiss canton, Zug, is on its eastern shore. 
The town of Zug is at the northeastern verge, looking 
prettily out over the waters at Eigi, Pilatus and the 
Bernese Alps. It is a quaint and thrifty town, with 
many ancient relics and Swiss characteristics, there 
being an extensive Fish Breeding Establishment on 



110 SWITZERLAND. 

the lake, and on an adjacent hill, an interesting Swiss 
Bee Museum. To the eastward of Zug, but at a much 
higher level is the pretty Ageri Lake, about three 
miles long and having at its eastern end the village 
of Morgarten. Xear here the Swiss Confederates, in 
November, 1315, won their first victory over their 
Austrian oppressors, headed by Duke Leopold. There 
is a memorial chapel of St. Jakob, near the lake, 
marking the victory and containing a painting of the 
battle. Seventy years later, on July 9, 1386, the 
Swiss again fought and defeated the Austrians at 
Lake Sempach, west of Lake Zug, and about ten 
miles northwest of Lucerne. They were headed by 
another Duke Leopold, the nephew of the commander 
at Morgarten. There were but thirteen hundred Swiss, 
and when they had failed after repeated efforts to 
penetrate the Austrian lines, Arnold de Winkelried 
made his ffreat sacrifice which brou2:ht the victorv. 
Grasping all the protruding Austrian pikes within 
reach, he buried them in his body and bore them to 
the ground, while over his prostrate form, his com- 
panions rushed into the opening and defeated the 
Austrians with great slaughter. Leopold, nearly 
three hundred knights and thousands of his soldiers 
were slain. In 1886, the five hundredth anniversary 
of the battle was marked by erecting a column sur- 
mounted by a lion. The long, narrow and crescent- 
shaped Lake of Zurich is northeast from Zug. spread- 
ing far across the rolling country, for the mountains 
here have diminished into rolling hills and rids^es. 



ZURICH LAKE AND THE WALENSEE. m 

still higii, but much more gentle and pastoral than 
those to the southward. 

ZURICH LAKE AXD THE TTALEXSEE. 

The Zurich Lake (Zuricher See) is twenty-five 
miles long and not over two and one-half miles 
broad in its widest part, being generally much nar- 
rower. Its elevation is over thirteen hundred feet, 
and it makes a long trough environed by beautiful 
banks gradually descending in gentle slopes from the 
adjacent wooded hilltops, sometimes at three thou- 
sand feet elevation, to the edge of the water, their 
surface being a grand display of the richest verdure 
in fields, gardens, vineyards and orchards, while off to 
the southward rises the long and distant line of snow- 
capped Alps. The river Linth, entering at the south- 
eastern end, feeds the lake, and the Limmat drains it 
northwest to the Aar. Xear the centre of the lake, 
protruding peninsulas project from either side, thus 
dividing it at Eapperswil into the Upper and Lower 
Lakes, and a drawbridge carries a railway across. 
On the high hill of the Lindenhof is the old Schloss, 
where a black marble column surmounted by the Pol- 
ish eagle, commemorates the long struggle of that un- 
fortunate nation for independence, and there is also 
a museum of Polish relics, this having been a place 
of refuge for exiles. Out in front of Eapperswil, are 
the little islands of Liitzelau and Ufnau. To the 
latter, which is a fief of the ancient Abbey of Ein- 



112 SWITZERLAND. 

siedeln, its chapel dating from the twelfth century, 
came the Eeformer Ulrich von Hutten, when pur- 
sued b}^ his enemies, in 1523, to die, which he did 
shortly after arrival, and his remains repose in the 
churchyard. Einsiedeln, the great pilgrim resort of 
northern Switzerland, is in the pretty valley of the 
Alpnach, a branch of the Sihl, a few miles south of 
the Zurich Lake. The pious Abbess Hildegard of 
Zurich, in the ninth century, presented Count Mein- 
rad of Sulgen with a miraculous image of the Virgin, 
and he built a chapel for it which thus founded the 
Abbey. After his death, in 861, he was canonized and 
a monaster}^ of Benedictines, (hermits, or "Einsied- 
ler,^^ whence the name) was established here becom- 
ing an independent principality under the later pa- 
tronage of the German emperors, and the vast con- 
course of pilgrims attracted by the image made it one 
of the wealthiest religious foundations in Europe. 
The pilgrims, principally Germans, sometimes num- 
ber two hundred thousand in a year, the fete day be- 
ing September 14th. 

The older monastery buildings are all gone, and 
the present elaborate group, replacing them, dates 
from the early eighteenth century. A railway is laid 
up the narrow valley, and the village, which is at 
about three thousand feet elevation, is gathered 
around a large open space, most of the houses being 
inns for the accommodation of pilgrims. In this 
space is a black marble fountain, with the Virgin'.? 
image on top, and from the numerous jets of water 



ZURICH LAKE AND THE WALENSEE. 113 

the pilgrims reverently drink. The approach to the 
church is by semicircular arcades on either side, where 
are shops for the sale of devotional objects and sou- 
venirs, which are in such demand that many hun- 
dreds of workmen are employed in their manufac- 
ture. The church from which rise two slender tow- 
ers, has a fagade about one hundred and twenty feet 
wide in the centre of the group of Abbey buildings. 
On either side of the entrance are statues of its two 
greatest benefactors, the German Emperors, Otho I. 
and Henry II. Within is the Chapel of the Virgin, 
the place of special sanctity, constructed of black 
marble. Here the visitor looks through a grating, 
where the illumination of a solitar}^ lamp discloses a 
small image of the Virgin and Child, enriched b]^ 
costly attire and crowns of gold and gems. The in- 
terior of the church is gaudily decorated, and ISTa- 
poleon III. presented the Abbey a magnificent chan- 
delier, in memory of his mother. There are also a 
Library, Seminary and Lyceum. In 1861, the one 
thousandth anniversary of the death of St. Meinrad 
was celebrated with elaborate ceremonial. 

At the northwestern foot of Zurich Lake, where 
the green and rapid Limmat flows out, is the ancient 
city of Zurich, the Eoman Turicum, which was a 
Helvetian town when the Eomans came this wa}^ 58 
B. C. The numerous lacustrine remains found, show 
the locality to have been inhabited in pre-historic 
times. It was closely connected with the movements 
forming the Swiss Confederation in the fourteenth 



1 14 SWITZERLAND. 

century, and is now the leading Swiss city, having 
over 170,000 inhabitants. It was early an intellec- 
tual leader in Swiss culture, and was noted in the 
sixteenth century as the centre of the active move- 
ments of the Swiss Eeformation, under Zwingli. This 
famous religious leader, the predecessor of John Cal- 
vin, began his reformatory preaching against various 
abuses, at Einseideln in 1516, subsequently making 
Zurich his home. Here he opened an energetic cam- 
paign in 1519, and until 1531 was the celebrated pas- 
tor of the Grossmiinster, or Cathedral. War follow- 
ing from the religious animosities, the Catholic can- 
tons to the southward sent a force against the Zur- 
ichers, who marched out on the road to Zug in 1531 
to defend their borders. Zwingli went with them as 
chaplain, and he was slain in the battle at Kappel, 
north of Zug, October 11, 1531, where the much 
smaller Zurich force was defeated. 

Zurich has an attractive situation. The Limmat 
divides the town into two unequal portions, the 
Grosse Stadt and the Kleine Stadt, while on the 
western edge flows the Sihl, a torrent when the snows 
are melting in the spring, falling into the Limmat 
some distance below. Zurich is a leading seat of silk 
making, and the chief manufacturing centre of Swit- 
zerland, having also cotton and iron mills, and a large 
book trade. Its pleasant outlook is over the clear 
green waters of the lake, bordered with villages, vine- 
yards and cultivated fields, and having a splendid 
background of the distant snow-covered Alps. Spa- 



ZURICH LAKE AND THE WALENSEE. 115 

cious quays line the lake shore and make excellent 
promenades, while high over tlie Limmat, between it 
and the Sihl, above their continence, is the Linden- 
hof, an early fortified castle which afterward became 
an imperial palace under the German domination. 
Near it are two noted churches, Augustine of the 
old Catholics, and St. Peter's, with a massive tower, 
where Lavater was long the pastor, dying in 1801. 
Down near the river is the old Wasserkirche of the 
fifteenth century, containing the Public Library of 
over one hundred and fifty thousand books and manu- 
scripts, including Zwingli's Greek Bible and a letter 
written by him to his wife. His statue stands on the 
adjacent quay. The old bridge, the Miinster-Briicke, 
here crosses the Limmat, and steps lead from its east- 
ern end up to the ancient Grossmunster, redolent 
with memories of Zwingli. This Cathedral dates from 
the eleventh century, and was two centuries building. 
It has Gothic towers, and on one, in memory of his 
gifts, Charlemagne is enthroned. The Swiss N'ational 
Museum, containing the most important and exten- 
sive collection of historical and other art treasures in 
the country, is a recent construction in Zurich, opened 
in 1898. The people of this attractive city go up on 
the Vetliberg, an eminence to the southwest, rising 
fifteen hundred feet above the lake level, to enjoy the 
grand view of the Alps and the intervening country 
of lakes, hills and forests. Upon its summit is an 
obelisk and bust of Jakob Dubs, the Zurich publicist 
and statesman who was born in 1822, was twice 



116 SWITZERLAND. 

chosen President of the Swiss Confederation and who 
died in 1879. This height is the northernmost point 
of an elevated ridge stretching out from the Alps, 
and is reached by a railway. 

The southeastern head of the Zurich Lake, like 
most of these elongated Alpine lakes, is in a broad 
valley filled up by the detritus brought down by the 
streams. A few miles to the southeastward is an- 
other lake, the Walensee, and the wide floor of the 
intervale through which the Linth flows to connect 
these lakes was originally a swampy region, which 
has been drained by canals and most of the surface 
reclaimed for cultivation. Here are the Linth and 
Escher Canals, while at the foot of the Walensee, 
the Linth comes out from the higher mountains 
through the Vale of Glarus, up which to the south- 
ward is given a striking view, the distant horizon be- 
yond the gorge, enclosed by snow-covered peaks. At 
Xafels, just within the vale, they have an annual 
festival in April, to commemorate the shaking off 
the Austrian j^oke in 1388. There were eleven at- 
tacks upon the village, and eleven memorial stones, 
with a monument recall them. This is the Canton 
Glarus, and farther south environed by high moun- 
tains is the capital, a busy industrial town, where 
Zwingli was the pastor for ten j^ears before he re- 
moved to Zurich. The Linth valley ends in a magnifi- 
cent array of mountains, the highest being the giant 
Todi, rising 11,887 feet. 

At the foot of the Walensee, is the attractive vil- 



THE ST. GOTTHARD. 117 

lage and summer resort of Weesen, with a beautiful 
promenade giving an outlook over the lake. The 
Walensee is over nine miles long and barely a mile 
wide, embosomed amid high precipices and display- 
ing grand scenery, so that it ranks second only to Lake 
Lucerne. On the northern shore the mountains rise 
in gigantic terraces, six thousand feet above the water 
in a series of barren peaks, of which the highest, the 
Hinterruck, is elevated 7,575 feet above sea level. 
These make at the edge of the lake, huge cliff-walls 
two to three thousand feet high. The railway runs 
along the southern shore with many tunnels pierced 
through the rocky buttresses, although the bank on 
that side is less steep and more varied in scenery. 
There are many beautiful glens enclosed by these 
protruding ridgy hills, among them the Murgthal, 
with the village of Murg, another charming summer 
resort, at its entrance. At the head of the lake is 
Walenstadt, and here the river Seez comes down 
through a broad valley to feed the lake. The divide 
is crossed from Mels to the Ehine valley only a little 
way off at Sargens, the Seez which comes out from 
the mountains of the southwest, being here sharply 
bent to the northwest, or otherwise it might have 
joined the greater river. 

THE ST. GOTTHARD. 

Throughout all this region there is kept in warm 
remembrance the name of Alfred Escher. He was a 



118 SWITZERLAND. 

Swiss statesman and projector of great public works 
and died in 1882. His bronze statue stands upon a 
fine fountain in a public square of Zurich and lie is 
noted as the founder of the St. Gotthard railway, 
now the chief route of travel from all this part of 
Switzerland into Italy. To reach this road we re- 
turn to Lake Lucerne where all the railway and other 
approaches converge toward the Timer See, its upper 
arm. The St. Gotthard railway, from Lucerne to 
Bellinzona, is over one hundred miles long. It goes 
along the elevated slopes around the northern side of 
Lake Lucerne, encircling the Eigi and passing through 
numerous tunnels, runs high above the Lake of Zug 
north of the Eigi, and at seventeen miles distance, at 
the eastern base of the Rigi passes the station of 
Arth-Goldau, or the "Goldau Landslip." Here in 
September, 1806, the entire side of the Eossberg, an 
eminence to the northward, from Gnippen, near the 
summit, at over fifty-one hundred feet elevation, slip- 
ped into the valley, engulfing four villages and kill- 
ing over four hundred and fifty people. The scene 
of desolation has been covered with some vegetation 
by time, but the barren track of the land-slip is still 
visible on the slope of the Eossberg. Steinen to the 
eastward was the birthplace of Werner Stauffacher of 
Schwyz, one of the three heroes of the Eiitli. The 
Chapel of the Holy Eood has been built on the site 
of his house. The route passes the pretty Lowerzer 
See, and through the Canton of Schwyz, the original 
cradle of the Confederation, whence came the name 



THE ST. GOTTHARD. 119 

of Switzerland. The capital, Schwyz, lies at the base 
of the Great Myten, rising 6,245 feet, and giving a 
superb view. In the Town Hall, are portraits of the 
magistrates for several centuries, and the walls are 
embellished with frescoes illustrating Swiss history. 
Then the railway reaches the Urner See or Lake of 
Uri, and is carried along its steep eastern bank, 
southward through rock cuttings and tunnels to Fliie- 
len and directly into the high Alps. 

The favorite route from Lucerne to the Urner See 
is by steamboat upon the beautiful lake, with its at- 
tractive shores and magnificent array of mountains in 
full view, as only gliding over the water can display 
them. Thus sailing upon the Vierwaldstatter See, 
its long arms gradually open to the north and south, 
the bay of Kussnacht northward, and the Stansstad 
arm toward Alpnach to the right, as the steamboat 
passes through the Kreuztrichter, or centre of the 
grand cross formed by the lake. The ponderous form 
of Eigi rises beyond, while behind is Pilatus, its sum- 
mits usually wreathed in clouds. Weggis and Vitz- 
nau nestle at the base of Eigi down by the shore, and 
from the latter can be traced the railway route up the 
mountain. Then the two "noses" project, and the 
steamboat turns southward through the strait be- 
tween these promontories, the eastern or Obere Nase 
on the left being a spur of the Eigi, and the western 
or Untere Nase, a projection from the Biirgenstock, 
where the village of Buochs is spread along a deeply 
indented bay around to the southwestward. From 



120 SWITZERLAND. 

this place the portion of the lake southward of the 
strait is locally known as the Buochser See. Farther 
along on the southern shore is Beckenried, where the 
officials of the four Forest Cantons usually assembled 
in the olden time to consider their joint affairs. To 
the southeastward, on the peninsula between this por- 
tion of the lake and the Urner See rise the Xieder- 
bauen, elevated 6,322 feet, and the Oberbauen, 6,960 
feet, giving splendid outlooks upon the entire lake 
country. Over opposite is Gersau, and beyond, ap- 
parently at the head of the lake, is Schwyz nestling in 
a valley, while at a high elevation near the end of 
the peninsula is Seelisberg, all these ancient villages 
now being popular summer resorts. The high ter- 
races give magnificent displays of the Timer See, while 
not far away and presenting a most striking outlook, 
are the huge perpendicular rocks of the Teufels- 
miinster immortalized in Schiller's William Tell. 

Opposite the projecting peninsula on the eastern 
bank of the lake, here making the sharp turn into the 
ITrner See, is the port of Schwyz, the pleasant village 
of Brunnen, having its admirable outlook westward 
toward Pilatus and Eigi across the main lake, and 
southward up the deep fissure of the TJrner See into 
the heart of the Alps. Its many hotels and villas are 
dotted upon the hill slopes all about, while behind 
rise the two Myten mountains, and nearer is the hill of 
the Glitsch. The mountains now rise higher, and the 
chasm enclosing the Urner See gets deeper and ap- 
parently narrower. The steamboat rounds the My- 



THE ST. GOTTHARD. 121 

tenstein rock with its inscription in memory of 
Schiller, and passes the meadow of the Riitli on the 
western shore. Along the precipitous eastern bank is 
constructed high above the water, the Axenstrasse, 
nine miles from Brunnen up to Fliielen at the head 
of the lake, its route mainly hewn out of the rocks and 
showing great engineering skill. Alongside, and 
sometimes below or above is the St. Gotthard railway, 
with many tunnels, galleries, viaducts and rock cut- 
tings. TelFs Platte and Chapel are in a magnificent 
situation just below the lines of these roads, near the 
edge of the water. Finally, at the head of the lake, is 
the port of IJri, Fluelen, a village in the mountains, 
the beginning of the road to the St. Gotthard Pass, 
and out through a deep valley comes the Eeuss, which 
has been embanked to reclaim part of the floor of the 
intervale. On all sides are high mountains, and to 
the westward rise the Uri-Eothstock, 9,620 feet, and 
the Brunnistock, 9,683 feet, with their glaciers, this 
mountain group on the eastern and southeastern 
slopes being almost perpendicular, and displaying re- 
markable formations of the twisted and contorted 
limestone cliffs. 

THE RAILWAY, TUNNEL AND PASS. 

The ancient road over the St. Gotthard Pass, well 
known to the Eomans, leads from Fliielen up the val- 
ley of the Eeuss, crosses the Alpine summit at 6,935 
feet elevation, and then descends the Italian side bv 



122 SWITZERLAND. 

the gorge of the Ticino^ to Airolo, a distance of ahout 
forty-fiYe miles. In tlie olden time this was probably 
the most frequented of the Alpine passes, until early 
in the last century, the completion of better roads 
over the Simplon and elsewhere, diverted the travel. 
Then in 1820 and subsequent years, the people of the 
Cantons of TTri and Ticino made a good carriage road, 
thus regaining much of the patronage, but the rail- 
way now has again taken the carriage travel away. 
Many tourists still go, however, by road over the ap- 
proaches, not crossing the summit, but passing 
through the railway tunnel, thus enjoying the best 
of the scenery. The St. Gotthard is a mountain 
group of large area, extensive glaciers and many peaks, 
and has the fame of being the source of the Ehine, 
the Ehone and the Ticino. The Pass is a depression 
between mountains rising two or three thousand feet 
above it on either side, thus shutting out almost all 
the views, though the approaches on both sides are 
fine. While it is interesting geologically and from its 
flora, yet the barrenness and bleakness of the summit 
are unattractive to the ordinary visitor. There are, 
in the group, more than a dozen peaks rising over 
eighty-two hundred feet, the highest being to the 
westward of the Pass, including several of over ten 
thousand feet, and the most elevated of the immedi- 
ate group, the Pizzo Eotondo, is 10,490 feet high. 
Farther to the westward the crowning summit of the 
range in this region is the Galenstock, rising 11,805 
feet. 



AXENSTRASSE ON LAKE LUCERNE. 



THE RAILWAY, TUNNEL AND PASS. 123 

The railway and road follow up the side of the deep 
valley of the Eeuss. About a mile southward from the 
lake is Altdorf, the capital of Uri, the whole neigh- 
borhood redolent with the exploits of Tell, and his 
statue in bronze as an archer with his child along- 
side stands in the public square. Here, on the moun- 
tain side are the old Church and Monastery, and 
sloping above the latter, rises the Bannwald, the "sa- 
cred grove" protected from the woodman's axe, as it 
shields the village from rocks falling down the moun- 
tain. This grove is referred to in Schiller's Tell. 
The ruined castle of Attinghausen, where Baron 
Werner died in 1320, is farther up the Eeuss. The 
valley narrows, and the route ascends. Near Amsteg 
on the rocky hill lived the tyrant Gessler in his tra- 
ditional castle of Zwing-TJri, now in ruins. From 
Amsteg for a dozen miles up to Goschenen, the scen- 
ery is magnificent and the old road is preferable to 
the railway, though the latter exhibits superb engi- 
neering in getting the necessary distance for the as- 
cending gradient required for the elevation. 

The St. Gotthard railway was begun in 1873 and 
completed in 1898. ^Switzerland, Italy, Germany and 
various separate German States contributed to the 
cost, which was about $52,000,000. To secure the 
gradual rise necessary for an ordinary steam railroad, 
curved tunnels and double loops are availed of, there 
being three such tunnels pierced in the steep sides 
of the Eeuss valley, thus ascending much like a cork- 
screw, while in the Ticino valle}', on the southern side. 



124 SWITZERLAND. 

are four similar constructions. There are in the road, 
seventy-nine tunnels, aggregating a length of over 
twenty-eight miles, fourteen viaducts, and one hun- 
dred and twenty-five bridges. The tunnel which 
pierces the mountain almost due southward from 
Goschenen, was set at as low a level as consistent 
with the necessities of the work, and is over nine miles 
long, with the centre at 3,786 feet elevation above the 
sea. Much of the tunnelling was necessary to protect 
the line in parts exposed to avalanches. In getting up 
the Eeuss there is a curved tunnel nearly one mile 
long, bored into the rocky mountain side, which en- 
ables the road to ascend about one hundred and fifteen 
feet, and then above, at Wasen, a double loop and two 
more curved tunnels, part of the line being bored un- 
der the Wasen church hill, and ascending over three 
hundred feet. 

This is a most remarkable place. The high church 
hill stands in the centre of the wide valley with the 
Reuss flowing far below. The railroad train, after go- 
ing through the first circular tunnel bored in the 
mountain on the west side of the river, approaches the 
hill which is surmounted by the tall-steepled church, 
and darts deeply under it. Then the locomotive 
rushes along galleries cut in the rocks, and crossing 
the Eeuss, enters another circular tunnel. Coming 
out, it recrosses the river and again moves directly 
toward the church, but on a higher level. Into and 
out of tunnels, backward, forward and around, con- 
stantly rising higher, it goes toward and away from 



Statue of William Tell. 



THE RAILWAY, TUNNEL AND PA8S. 125 

the church, and thus proceeding for a half-hour, with 
the church always there, now before and below, then 
before and above, with no apparent progress made, 
and the church seeming still ahead, though constantly 
sinking lower and lower, until finally a third circular 
tunnel is traversed in the mountain, and with the 
church actually left behind, the train leaves Wasen 
and proceeds up the gorge. Then it goes through 
more tunnels and over bold bridges, and comes to 
Goschenen, having mounted over eighteen hundred 
feet from Amsteg and reached the northern entrance 
to the great tunnel. In the Goschenen village ceme- 
tery is a monument to the engineer, Favre, who died 
in the tunnel while superintending the work in July, 
1879. 

The St. Gotthard tunnel is almost two miles longer 
than the tunnel under Mont Cenis, being about nine 
and one-quarter miles long. It was eight years boring, 
work beginning at each end in the summer of 1872, 
and it cost $11,350,000, there being twenty-five hun- 
dred to three thousand workmen almost constantly 
employed. It carries through a double track railway, 
is twenty-eight feet wide and twenty-one feet high, 
lined with masonry, and from the centre descends by 
easy gradients to either end. The centre of the tun- 
nel is 3,786 feet above sea-level, and overhead rises 
the Kastelhorn, 6,076 feet above the tunnel. The vil- 
lage of Andermatt is over the tunnel on the north 
side of the pass, and about eleven hundred feet above 
it, while south of the mountain the tunnel goes di- 



126 SWITZERLAND. 

rectly under the Sella Lake, which is about thirty- 
three hundred feet above it. The express trains re- 
quire fourteen to twenty minutes to pass through. 
At the exit is the Italian-Swiss town of Airolo, with 
a display of fortifications just to the right of the tun- 
nel, in the deep gorge of the Ticino. 

The infant Eeuss rising on the St. Gotthard, comes 
from the southwest toward Goschenen, while the Ti- 
cino on the southern side goes out through its deep val- 
ley toward the southeast. The tunnel is bored di- 
rectly southAvard from one gorge to the other, while 
the roadway mounts over the top in various zigzag 
windings, crossing to the westward of the Kastelhorn 
and the line of the tunnel. The railroad between 
Goschenen and Airolo is ten miles long, while the 
windings of the road over the pass, rising about two- 
thirds of a mile in elevation, cover twenty-two miles. 
The road ascends the gloomy defile above the village, 
being protected by galleries from avalanches, and in 
a wildly beautiful gorge crosses the famous Devil's 
Bridge, beneath which the Eeuss falls for a hundred 
feet into a deep abyss. The old bridge of one bold arch 
crossing the dreaded and terrific torrent, and about 
which so many weird stories were told, was carried 
away by a flood in 1888. It had, however, been su- 
perseded as early as 1830 by a substantial granite 
bridge, also of a single bold arch and constructed 
alongside, but at a higher level. The two stood there 
together for over a half-century. Longfellow has sung 
of this old bridge in the Golden Legend. While Lucifer 



Devil's Brjdge-st. cotthard- Pass. 



THE RAILWAY, TUNNEL AND PASS. 127 

laughs in scorn beneath the arch, the guide tells its 
interesting story : 

"This bridge is called the Devil's Bridge, 
With a single arch, from ridge to ridge, 
It leaps across the terrible chasm 
Ya\vning beneath us, black and deep, 
As if, in some convulsive spasm. 
The summits of the hills had cracked. 
And made a road for the cataract. 
That raves and rages down the steep! 

"Never any bridge but this 
Could stand across the wild abyss; 
All the rest, of wood or stone. 
By the Devil's hand were overthrown. 
He toppled crags from the precipice, 
And whatsoe'er was built by day 
In the night was swept away; 
None could stand but this alone. 

"I showed you in the valley a bowlder. 
Marked by the imprint of his shoulder; 
As he was bearing it up this way, 
A peasant, passing, cried "Herr Je!" 
And the Devil dropped it in his fright, 
And vanished suddenly out of sight! 

"Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedeln, 
For pilgrims on their way to Home, 
Built this at last, with a single arch, 
Under which, on its endless march, 
Buns the river, white with foam, 
Like the thread through the eye of a needle. 
And the Devil promised to let it stand, 
Under compact and condition 
That the first living thing which crossed 
Should be surrendered into his hand, 
And be beyond redemption lost. 



128 SWITZERLAND. 

"At length, the bridge being all completed. 
The Abbot, standing at its head, 
Threw across it a loaf of bread, 
Which a hungry dog sprang after, 
And the rocks reechoed with the peals of laughter 
To see the Devil thus defeated!" 

And then Lucifer from beneath replies : 

"Ha! ha! defeated! 
For journeys and for crimes like this 
I let the bridge stand o'er the abyss!" 

This famous old bridge was the scene of fierce com- 
bats in 1799, when the Austrians and Eussians, un- 
der Marshal Suvaroff, coming over the pass from 
Italy, drove out the French and compelled their re- 
treat to Lake Lucerne. An inscription records the 
event, and the century was marked in 1899 by the con- 
struction in a niche in the rocks, of a large granite 
Cross, known as the Suvaroff Monument. The pass 
above bristles with fortifications. The rocky Urner 
Loch is tunnelled, and then the green Urseren valley 
is passed, the route being along the Reuss for about 
eight miles through it. Bleak and snow-covered 
mountains enclose it, and the chief village is Ander- 
matt, a centre for excursions to the neighboring 
peaks. Beyond is Hospenthal, the lonely tower on the 
hill remaining as a relic of the ancient Castle of the 
Counts of Hospenthal. Here the road over the Furka 
Pass goes off southwestward to the Ehone valley, while 
southward the St. Grotthard road winds upward toward 
Lake Lucendro, still following a branch of the Reuss. 



THE RAILWAY, TUNNEL AND PASS. 129 

The prett}^ green Lake Lucendro, nestling among 
mountain peaks and glaciers rising three thousand 
feet above it, is at 6,835 feet elevation. It is a short 
distance west of the road, which, leaving the Eeuss 
near the outflow of the lake, mounts by zigzags to a 
higher elevation and crosses the top of the pass at 
6,935 feet elevation, about a mile beyond. This is a 
bleak and uninviting region, and at the verge of the 
descent on the southern side are the old Hospice and 
Albergo del San Gottardo, with a modern inn, named 
for the adjacent Monte Prosa to the eastward. The 
Sella Lake is at the southeastern slope of Monte 
Prosa, and out of it comes a branch of the infant Ti- 
cino. The road descends for about a half-mile to this 
stream and then enters the noted Yal Tremola, a deep 
and dismal gorge through which the torrent plunges 
down, and the road zigzags along the sides until it 
gets down to the Val Leventina, a rather more open 
gorge, with the main stream of the Ticino flowing 
southeastward through it. Thus it reaches Airolo 
about eight miles from the summit of the pass. 

Down through the Val Leventina, by tunnels, 
galleries, viaducts, bridges and loops, the railway and 
road are constructed along its precipitous sides. We 
are told that this valley in ancient times belonged to 
the Swiss Cantons in common, and was governed un- 
til the French took possession in Napoleon's time, 
by three despotic barons, appointed by Uri, Schwyz 
and Unterwalden, and that they usually bought their 
appointments. Afterward, this and other valleys 



130 SWITZERLAND. 

south of the Alps were combined in the Canton of 
Ticino. The valle}^ broadens below Airolo, the Ticino 
descends rapids and cascades, and the railway to get 
down, displays more spiral loop tnnnels. The river 
forces its way through the beautiful Biaschina ravine, 
passes frequent villages in a constantly broadening in- 
tervale displaying great luxuriance of foliage, garden, 
orchard and vineyard and finally conies to Bellinzona, 
the capital of the Canton with its three old castles. 
This town, regarded as the key to the St. Cotthard 
Pass, was fortified in the middle ages by its Viscounts, 
and the three castles, two in ruins, are the conspicu- 
ous relics of a by-gone age. The three Swiss bailiffs 
driven out by the French occupied them for three 
centuries. To the westward conspicuously rises the 
Castello Grande on a hill, now an arsenal and prison. 
To the eastward is the Castello di Mezzo, and dominat- 
ing both, on a high elevation is the Castello Corbario. 
A railway tunnelled directly under the Mezzo leads 
eastward to Lake Como; the beautiful valley of the 
Ticino, constantly broadening goes southwest to Lake 
Maggiore, while to the northeast another Alpine road 
steeply ascends the mountains, to cross the San Ber- 
nardino Pass to the Hinter Ehein. 

VARIOUS ALPINE PASSES. 

The San Bernardino road follows up the vale of the 
Moesa northward, past ancient Roveredo and its 
ruined castle, the old Capuchin monastery of Cama, 



VARIOUS ALPINE PASSES. 131 

and the four towers crowning a rock which are the re- 
mains of the huge fortress of Mesocco, which formerly 
controlled this pass on the Italian side and w^as de- 
stroyed by the Swiss in the sixteenth century. This 
road is famous for the many cataracts it displays de- 
scending from the enclosing precipices, and it follows 
up the deep gorge, passing the village of San Bernar- 
dino, until it reaches the source of the Moesa in the 
little lake Moesola, near its northern head being the 
summit of the San Bernardino Pass at 6,770 feet ele- 
vation. This is a very ancient route over the Alps, 
being known to the Romans, and St. Bernardino of 
Siena, the Franciscan monk, and most celebrated 
preacher of his day in Italy, coming here in the fif- 
teenth century to preach the gospel, it was named for 
him. It descends the northern slope by steep windings 
to the Hinter Rhein, the valley being reached by a de- 
scent of fourteen hundred feet, and there are superb 
views, both north and south from the summit and 
slopes. Then the route follows down the valley of the 
Ehine and joins the Splligen road six miles below. 

The Splligen road coming up the Rhine, ascends 
the steep southern side of the valley opposite the Splli- 
gen village in many curves and zigzags, directly to the 
summit of the pass, at an elevation of 6,945 feet, and 
about twenty-two hundred feet above Spliigen, the 
winding route taking about six miles distance to ac- 
complish the ascent. This was an ancient mule path, 
which the Austrians, the better to communicate with 
northern Italy, converted into a military road about 



132 SWITZERLAND. 

1820. The route beyond is through bleak gorges, 
where, during snow-storms, bells are rung in the 
houses of refuge to guide the traveller. This portion 
was subject formerly to avalanches, until the line 
was changed, and here in the Cardinell Gorge, Gen- 
eral MacDonald's French army was overwhelmed by 
the snows in December, 1800, and suffered great loss. 
The descending route is protected in various places 
by avalanche galleries ; and is a work of very bold con- 
struction, some of the terraces rising almost per- 
pendicularly above each other. The steep de- 
scent of about thirty-six hundred feet is ac- 
complished in ten miles to Campodolcino, where 
the wild Liro Valley is entered, and followed 
down eight miles to Chiavenna. This was the 
Eoman Clavenna, and an inscription in Latin on 
the rocks near Campodolcino, testifies that the Em- 
peror Francis made this road from ^^Clavenna ad 
Ehenum." Here unite the Liro and the Mera, the 
latter coming down from the northeast, through the 
beautiful Yal Bregaglia, and the town is in a charming 
situation at their junction. The Mera flows to Lake 
Gomo through a luxuriant valley deeply embosomed 
in high mountains, and the route, after crossing the 
Adda coming from the eastward into the head of the 
lake, ends at Colico, the northern port of Lake Como. 
Northward of the passes, the united San Bernardino 
and Spliigen roads go down the Hinter Ehine to Thu- 
sis, and here begin the Albula and the Julier roads 
over the Ehaetian Alps to the famous Engadine. The 



VARIOUS ALPINE PASSES. 133 

route crosses the summit of the Schyn Pass, eastward 
and descends into the valley of the Albula, following- 
up this tributary of the Ehine for nine miles south- 
east, to Tiefencastell, the old Eoman post of Casti. 
Here the Julia torrent enters the Albula from the 
south, and the road divides, one following up each 
valley. The Julier route ascends the broadening Julia 
valley known as the Oberhalbstein, which has a good 
population and several villages, mostly of Eoman ori- 
gin. The Julia comes down several cataracts and the 
route traverses magnificent gorges carved out by 
erosion, throuo^h which the torrent brisklv roars. 
There are ruins of ancient watch-towers and castles, 
and finally turning eastward the Julier summit is 
crossed at 7,500 feet elevation, there being a small 
lake there, and two milestones of the time of Augus- 
tus, who first constructed this road. An inn and a 
few houses are just below the top of the pass. The 
Piz Julier, giving the name, towers to the northward. 
The descent gives a splendid view of the snow-covered 
summits of the Bernina group to the eastward, and 
soon the green hued lakes of the Upper Engadine 
come into view, and the river Inn is reached at Silva- 
plana, the descent being only about fifteen hundred 
feet, as the floor of the narrow Engadine valley is here 
at six thousand feet elevation. 

The Albula road ascends the valley of that romantic 
stream eastward, passing the sulphur baths of Al- 
veneu, and entering the deep gorge of the Bergiiner 
Stein, enclosed by high mountains. Here the road was 



134 SWITZERLAND. 

originally hewn out of the perpendicular side of the 
chasm more than two centuries ago and has been since 
broadened. Walls protect the outer side, and the 
roaring torrent far below while heard is rarely visible. 
Then the valley broadens, several villages are passed, 
and the ascent continues to the marsh among the 
mountain tops in which the Albula rises. The rock- 
strewn Devil's Valley is beyond and is traversed to the 
summit of the Albula Pass, twenty-eight miles from 
Thusis, at 7,595 feet elevation, enclosed by peaks ris- 
ing three thousand feet higher. Through a dreary 
valley, the route goes eastward and quickly descends 
in long bends, to the Inn, which is reached at Ponte, 
six miles distant and about two thousand feet below 
the top of the pass. 

THE ENGADINE. 

To the southward of the Julier Pass rises the mas- 
sive Pizzo Lunghino, 9,135 feet, and on its southern 
slope is a little pond of deep blue water, the Lunghino 
Lake, at an elevation of 8,136 feet, sending down the 
southeastern slope a rapid brook. This is the head of 
the river Inn. Farther southward is the greatest de- 
pression in the Alpine ridge, the Maloja Pass, elevated 
5,943 feet, and the lowest of all the passes between 
Switzerland and Italy. Across the Maloja summit 
westward the Mera has its source and goes down the 
Yal Bregaglia to Lake Como. The Inn, the ancient 
(Enus of the Eomans, is the great drain of the eastern 



THE EXGADINE. 135 

slopes of the Alps; crosses the Grisons, enters Tyrol, 
and passing through Bavaria to Austria, falls into the 
Danube after a course of over three hundred miles, at 
Passau. The valley of the Inn is the famous Enga- 
dine, its people speaking the Eomansh dialect, which 
existed here when the Emperor Augustus crossed the 
mountains and conquered ancient Eastia. This valley 
is at an altitude varying from about six thousand to 
thirty-five hundred feet, and is about sixty miles long 
from its head at the Maloja Pass, to the gorge of Fin- 
stermunz, where the river breaks out into the Tyrol, 
while the width is only one or two miles. It is a long 
trough enclosed between two mountain ridges, the tops 
being inaccessible rocks and often displaying snow and 
glaciers, and the floor of the valley having almost 
treeless meadows fringed by forests on the lower bor- 
dering slopes. The bracing air of the Upper Engadine 
has made it a great health resort, and it is crowded 
with visitors during the short summer season. The 
climate is always cold and the native proverb is that it 
has "nine months winter and three months cold," 
while frost and snow-storms are not uncommon in 
July and August. The people mostly emigrate at an 
early age, and acquiring a competency through labor 
elsewhere, come back to end their daj^s in their native 
valley. Thus they have made it very populous, their 
neat white houses with small windows, to exclude the 
cold and pretty gardens being dotted all about. 

The visitor entering by any of the passes finds the 
Upper Engadine a level and almost treeless meadow. 



136 ISWITZERLAND. 

After toiling up the steep western face of the mountain 
and crossing the Maloja Pass, he is at the head of a 
long valley a mile wide, with rivers, lakes, villages, a 
large population, and its floor as high as the pass, and 
at an altitude the highest known, where thousands of 
permanent inhabitants and armies of tourists dwell 
throughout the year. Great hotels and many other 
houses for the accommodation of visitors are at the 
pass, and it is but a short distance to St. Moritz, the 
chief town of the Engadine. The river expands into 
lakes, and the whole region is said to have once been 
covered by the neighboring Farno Glacier, which grad- 
ually retreated higher among the mountains. By the 
Cursaal of the chief hotel at the pass, the Ova d' 
Oen, the name given here to the infant Inn, descends 
rapids and cascades, and below soon broadens into the 
Lake of Sils, having the ruins of an ancient castle on 
a peninsula jutting into the water. Next, it expands 
into the Lake of Silvaplana, where the road from the 
Julier Pass comes down the mountain side; then into 
the smaller lake of Campfer; and finally at ten miles 
distance from the pass is St. Moritz Lake with the 
baths at its head, and the town on the northern side, 
on a sloping hill at an elevation about ninety feet 
higher than the Maloja Pass. In fact so gentle is the 
descent of the Inn through this series of lakes that 
the surface of Lake St. Moritz is not one hundred feet 
lower than the Lake of Sils. Thus, the whole region 
is at an elevation of much more than a mile above the 
sea. 



THE ENGADINE. 137 

Out of the base of the Piz Kosatsch, towering about 
four thousand feet above the lake, come the chaly- 
beate springs that make the baths and fame of St. 
Moritz. They have been visited for centuries by pa- 
tients from all nations, and are strongly impregnated 
with alkaline salts and carbonic acid, the waters being 
used both for drinking and bathing. The Swiss al- 
chemist, Paracelsus, early in the sixteenth century 
declared them the best of their kind in Europe, and 
one of the chief springs bears his name. There is a 
fine Curhaus and bathing establishment, and the sea- 
son is from the middle of June until September. The 
visitors take the prescribed course of treatment, and 
amuse themselves in visits to the neighboring gorges 
and mountain peaks, or sailing over the lake during 
the brief season that it is not frozen, while in the long 
winter they get much pleasure from skating and to- 
bogganing. To the southward is the great Bernina 
range, covered with snow and sending down many gla- 
ciers, its highest summit, the Piz Bernina, dominat- 
ing the whole region, rising 13,295 feet. The Bernina 
Bach flows out to the Inn, through a deep gorge, en- 
closing the pretty village of Pontresina, the centre for 
visits to these mountains and their grand displays of 
glaciers. The summit of the Alpine ridge in this re- 
gion is the watershed between the Black Sea and the 
Adriatic, drained on the north by the Inn and on the 
south by the Adda. The Bernina Pass from Pontre- 
sina crosses the mountain at 7,644 feet elevation to 
Tirano on the Adda. 



138 SWITZERLAND. 

In the Engadine about five miles below St. Moritz, 
is Samaden^ the chief village of the upper valley, 
which here considerably broadens. Four miles farther 
east is Ponte, where the Albula route comes in. The 
Engadine stretches afar with frequent villages, to 
Xauders over the Tyrolean boundary, and here, though 
something like sixty miles from the head of the valley. 
it is still so high that its floor is elevated about forty- 
five hundred feet. From both ends of the Engadine. 
there are passes across the Alps to Italy, the Maloja 
at its head being the lowest, and the Stelvio reached 
from its foot the highest carriage road crossing the 
mountain barrier. From the head of the elevated 
valley, the Maloja road has an abrupt descent of about 
twelve hundred feet, constructed in zigzags down the 
steep slope to the Yal Bregaglia which encloses the 
little river Mera, gaining constant volume as it gal- 
lops along. Parts of the route follow the ancient 
Eoman road, descending the gorge with many cas- 
cades coming out from lateral ravines, passing fre- 
quent picturesque Swiss villages, and herds of cattle 
high on the steep pastures which have been reclaimed 
from the forest-clad slopes, while snow-covered moun- 
tains tower all around. The wild Bondasca comes in 
from its glacier, and just beyond, the Italian boundary 
is crossed, the adjacent Acqua Fraggia displaying its 
splendid double fall. This road, after a distance of 
nearly twenty miles down the beautiful valley, joins 
the Spliigen road at Chiavenna, and thence proceeds 
to Colico on Lake Como. 



THE ENGADINE. 139 

From the village of Nauders, at the eastern end of 
the Engadine, the long and difficult route over the 
Stelvio Pass was constructed by the Austrians, begin- 
ning in 1820, to better connect them with Lom- 
bardy. The route goes from Innspruck, the capital of 
the Tyrol, to Milan. It first ascends about five hun- 
dred feet from the Engadine to cross the watershed 
between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and then de- 
scends eighteen hundred feet to the valley of the 
Adige. It climbs out of the Engadine through the 
narrow tributary ravine of the Trafoi-bach, and here 
is found spreading upon a hill-slope the little village 
which the Germans call Stilfs, and the Italians Stel- 
vio, giving its name to the route. After ascending 
twenty-two hundred feet it reaches the more preten- 
tious village of Trafoi which is a popular watering 
place. This is at the base of the towering and mas- 
sive Ortler, rising 12,800 feet, the highest of the 
Eastern Alps. Not far away are the "Three Holy 
Springs," from which come the names of the village 
and the stream. They rise at the foot of the moun- 
tain, and the head of a lateral valley at an elevation of 
about fifty-three hundred feet, and have been visited 
by pilgrims for centuries. Protected by a roof, are 
statues of Jesus, the Virgin, and St. John, streams of 
ice-cold "holy water" flowing from their breasts, and 
a chapel and refuge for pilgrims being near by. High 
above rises the great Ortler, while opposite is the stu- 
pendous and sombre Madatsch, almost as high, with 
snow-covered mountains and glaciers of the Ortler 



140 SWITZERLAND. 

range, and cascades falling over the precipices all 
about. Then for miles in windings and zigzags the 
road ascends the slope of the Ortler range past Fran- 
zenshohe, where there is an obelisk of memorial for 
Joseph Pichler, who first ascended the Ortler in 1804, 
and finally the summit of the Stelvio Pass is reached 
at 9,055 feet elevation. Here come together the boun- 
daries of three nations, Switzerland, the Tyrol and 
Italy. There are several refuges, and often the snow 
remains on this high pass until late in summer. The 
descent is to the little brook which is the head of the 
Adda, and thence to the Baths of Bormio, the route 
disclosing ancient towers of works defending the road 
long ago. Passing a defile below Bormio, the Adda 
valley broadens and the intervale shows great fertility, 
Tirano being reached at a distance of eighty miles 
from the Engadine. Then the route is down through 
the famous Val Valtellina, noted for its wines, past 
vineyards, gardens and many villages, with evidences 
of silk culture, a great industry in northern Italy, and 
along the bordering hills, until the Adda enters the 
Lake of Como, its deep blue waters embosomed among 
the mountains and stretching far southward. 

THE LAKE OF COMO. 

The Lake of Como is considered the finest as it is 
the most celebrated of the Italian lakes nestling in the 
long and deep valleys southward of the Alps. It was 
the Roman Lacus Larius, of which Virgil and Pliny 



THE LAKE OF COMO. 141 

wrote, and its beauties have been extolled in all ages. 
The head of the lake, formed by the outlets of the 
Mera and Adda, is surrounded by high mountains, 
while the divided southern ends stretch far among the 
lower foothills which finally flatten down into the 
Plains of Lombardy. It is about thirty miles long to 
the foot of the longest branch, at the town of Como, 
and the surface is elevated seven hundred feet above 
sea-level, while the adjacent mountain ridges rise to 
seventy-five hundred feet. Near the centre it divides 
into two branches, the Bay of Como to the southwest, 
and the shorter Bay of Lecco to the southeast, the lat- 
ter extending to Lecco, where the Adda flows out and 
carries the surplus waters to the distant river Po. Its 
scenery is magnificent, the mountain-enclosed shores 
lined with towns and villas, the homes of famous peo- 
ple for centuries, snow summits above, and the richest 
tropical vegetation below. It appears much like the 
scenery of a long river, the banks being so close, for it 
is rarely much more than a mile wide. 

The steamboat ride of three or four hours over the 
waters from Colico to Como is a constant panorama 
of pleasure. The whole eastern shore has a back- 
ground of precipitous mountains with tooth-like sum- 
mits, their bases coming steeply down to the water. 
The elaborate Stelvio road, which has come down the 
Adda, is constructed along this shore, and also a rail- 
way, by skillful engineering, both displaying numerous 
galleries, viaducts and tunnels. Various lateral ra- 
vines bring in streams, and at the outlet of one of these 



142 SWITZERLAND. 

valleys, nestling closely under the mountain range, in 
a charming situation, is Varenna. High above the 
terraced vineyards and fruit trees of the lower slopes, 
environing the town, and surrounded by huge cypress 
trees, are the ruins of the old castle, the Torre di 
Vezio, giving a noble view over the lake and the moun- 
tains beyond. Behind rises the grand summit of 
Monte Grigna, nearly eight thousand feet, its sides 
having quarries of the finest Italian marbles that are 
worked in the town, which has steep and picturesque 
little streets leading down to the water^s edge, lined 
with quaint houses, while every opening displays vista 
views of the beautiful lake and its little boats gliding 
over the surface. To the southward, the noted white 
cascade of the Fiume Latte, or "Milk river," descends 
in successive foaming leaps from a height of a thou- 
sand feet. 

The promontory of Ballagio projects from the 
southward into the widest part of the lake, and di- 
vides the two branches. The entire western shore of 
Lake Como is a succession of terraced gardens, fine vil- 
las, and the most luxuriant display of semi-tropical 
vegetation, with grapes, oranges, lemons, oleanders 
and the entire flora of the region in endless profusion. 
The many palatial homes along these shores, are the 
chosen retreats of the aristocracy of Milan, and of 
princes, millionaires, diplomatists, statesmen, artists 
and musicians, who recognize the charm of retirement 
to a palace on the enchanted shores of the Lake of 
Como. Bellagio looks out upon Varenna on the east- 



THE LAKE OF COMO. 143 

ern side and Menaggio on the western, all enjoying 
magnificent views, with long vistas of the three arms 
of the lake spreading far away. The most attractive 
part of Bellagio is the Villa Serbelloni, upon the pro- 
montory, its gardens extending to the protruding 
headland, around which the three branches converge. 
The villa and grounds display an infinite variety of 
charming scenes over water and mountain, there be- 
ing in one place a short tunnel cut through the rock 
and giving at each end a splendid view. The Bay of 
Lecco stretches to the southeast a long and narrow 
channel between the hills gradually contracting into 
the river Adda at the terminal town of Lecco, 
which, like most others of the district, has silk', 
factories, and spreads along the shore at the foot of 
Monte Resegone, or the Saw, rising on the eastern side 
in saw-tooth summits. Here are statues of Garibaldi 
and of Manzoni, who was born here in 1785. 

The Bay of Como, stretching off to the southwest 
is winding and narrower. Opposite Bellagio is Ca- 
denabbia, sheltered in a deep amphitheatre of moun- 
tains, and having in the suburbs the magnificent Villa 
Carlotta, displaying in its halls and galleries splendid 
sculptures by Thorvaldsen and others. It was thus 
named for the princess Charlotte of Prussia, who died 
in 1855, having formerly been called Somariva, and is 
now the property of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. The 
steep Sasso San Martino rises behind with its little 
Madonna church part way up the slope. It was at 
Cadenabbia that Longfellow, when wandering through 



144 SWITZERLAND. 

this beautiful region, wrote his famous sonnet to the 
Lake of Como — 

"No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks 
The silence of the summer day, 
As by the loveliest of all lakes 
I while the idle hours away. 

"I pace the leafy colonnade 

Where level branches of the plane 
Above me weave a roof of shade 
Impervious to the sun and rain. 

"At times a sudden rush of air 

Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, 
And gleams of sunshine toss and flare 
Like torches down the path I tread. 

"By Somariva's garden gate 

I make the marble stairs my seat, 
And hear the water, as I wait, 

Lapping the steps beneath my feet. 

"The undulation sinks and swells 

Along the stony parapets. 
And far away the floating bells 
Tinkle upon the fisher's nets. 

"Silent and slow, by tower and toAvn, 
The freighted barges come and go, 
Their pendant shadows gliding do^vn 
By town and tower submerged below. 

"The hills sweep upward from the shore, 
With villas scattered one by one 
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower 
Bellagio blazing in the sun. 



THE LAKE OF COMO. 145 

"And dimly seen, a tangled mass 

Of walls and woods, of light and shade, 
Stands beckoning up the Stelvio Pass 
Varenna with its white cascade. 

"I ask myself. Is this a dream? 
Will it all vanish into air? 
Is there a land of such supreme 
And perfect beauty anywhere? 

"Sweet vision! Do not fade away: 
Linger until my heart shall take 
Into itself the summer day, 
And all the beauty of the lake. 

"Linger until upon my brain 

Is stamped an image of the scene, 
Then fade into the air again, 

And be as if thou hadst not been." 

Farther southward is the village of Tremezzo, and 
the luxuriant district known as the Tremezzina, which 
is called the "Garden of Lombardy.^' Upon the east- 
ern shore is the deep bay of Molina, at the entrance to 
a narrow gorge, and here is the celebrated Villa Pli- 
niona, the present building having been constructed in 
the sixteenth century. The name comes from a re- 
markable spring rising near the house, which daily 
changes its level. Pliny recorded this peculiar ebb- 
ing and flowing of the water which is the same now as 
in his day, and descriptive quotations from both the 
elder and the younger Pliny are inscribed on the walls. 
To the westward the bay shore ends in a promontory, 
where the lake makes the final bend southward, and 



146 SWITZERLAND. 

here is TornO;, its campanile rising among the trees, 
and the shores dotted with villas. Formerly it ri- 
valled Como in importance, bnt the invading Span- 
iards, in the sixteenth century, almost destroyed the 
place and since then it has been eclipsed. Eoads are 
constructed along both shores southward to Como, 
and on the western bank at Cernobbio is the famous 
Villa d^ Este, the residence of the English Queen Caro- 
line, now a hotel. To the northward rises Monte Bis- 
bino, nearly forty-four hundred feet, giving an admir- 
able view and surmounted by a pilgrimage chapel. 

At the end of this branch of the lake is Como, its 
most considerable town, with about twelve thousand 
people, many of them employed in the silk industries. 
A grand amphitheatre of mountains surrounds the 
place, and it cherishes the memory of the younger 
Pliny, who was born here. Yolta, the physicist, whose 
statue stands near the harbor, was also a native of 
Como, and it was the birthplace of Pope Innocent XI. 
The outlook is superb, along the narrow lake enclosed 
by mountains, its surface dotted by boats, and the dis- 
tant snow-line of the higher Alps making the northern 
horizon. The great attraction is the marble Cathedral, 
among the finest in northern Italy, begun in florid 
Gothic in the fourteenth century and finished in the 
Eenaissance. The curious Broletto, a town hall, built 
of variegated stones in the thirteenth century, is ad- 
jacent. Upon the hills south of the town rises the 
lofty tower of the Castello Barradello, where the Em- 
peror Frederick Barbarossa resided at times. It was 



LAKE MAGGIORE, 147 

here, in 1277, that Xapoleoiie della Torre, when cajD- 
tured by his rival Ottone Visconti, was imprisoned 
and shut up in an iron cage, where after months of 
confinement he killed himself. Thirty miles south- 
ward is Milan. 

LAKE MAGGIORE. 

From Como, thirty-two miles westward, a railway 
runs to Laveno on Lake Maggiore. It crosses the 
ridges between them, and passes the charming Lake 
Varese, its banks lined with villages and villas. Over 
this beautiful lake there is a pleasant view from the 
high hill on its northern side, where, at an elevation 
of nearlv three thousand feet, the church of the Ma- 
donna del Monte has been built in a most admirable 
situation. Toward the westward, the little stream 
Boesio flows out through the deep gorge of the Val 
Cuvio, past the base of the high Sasso del Ferro to 
Lake Maggiore. L^p to this summit, the people go to 
get the view, embracing the splendid stretch of the 
lake far northward and southward, the Plains of Lom- 
bardy to Milan, and the Monte Eosa chain of the Alps 
spreading its snow-peaks far across the distant north- 
ern horizon. The Boesio expands into a broad bay at 
its outlet, and here is Laveno, which was the Austrian 
naval stronghold of Lake Maggiore before the Gara- 
baldian revolt, and those who fell in their attack of 
1859 are remembered in a monument near the quay. 
Laveno has a gorgeous view over the lake to the Bay 



148 SWITZERLAND. 

of Pallanza, and the famous Borromean Islands dot- 
ting the waters at its entrance between Pallanza and 
Stresa. In return, those towns also have a noble out- 
look at the deep and pretty bay, where Laveno nestles, 
amid its obsolete forts and castles, and its splendid en- 
closure of mountains. 

Lake Maggiore is about thirty-seven miles long, 
with a most sinuous course, giving great variety to its 
scenery. It was the Eoman Lacus Yerbanus, its sur- 
face being at 636 feet elevation, while its depth in 
places is very great, soundings having reached over 
twenty-six hundred feet, showing the bottom to be 
nearly two thousand feet lower than the ocean level. 
From south to north in sailing over the lake it 
displays all the changes of scenery from the gentle de- 
clivities adjoining the Plains of Lombardy, to the 
high mountains and Alpine surroundings of the north- 
ern head, and likewise, as the steamboat progresses, 
the deep blue waters of the southern portion change to 
green at the north, where the Ticino flows in, bringing 
down copious glacial discharges from the Alps. Swit- 
zerland controls the north and Italy the south end. 
The general width of the lake varies from two to three 
miles, with double the distance across the middle bay 
from Laveno, where are almost all the favorite re- 
sorts for visitors. The great transalpine routes of 
travel by the St. Gotthard from Bellinzona, and the 
Simplon from Domodossola concentrate at this cen- 
tral bay. 

Locarno is the chief town of the northern end, at the 



LAKE MAGGIORE. 149 

mouth of the Maggia, which has brought down its 
glacial outflow for ages and formed a huge delta b}^ the 
deposits, surrounded by mountains giving charming 
views. The valley of the Maggia is a grand defile com- 
ing out of the heart of the Alpine foothills. Both 
shores of the lake, southward from Locarno, display a 
succession of towns and villas. At Luino, on the 
eastern bank, the sojourner arriving at the steamboat 
pier is welcomed by a statue of Garibaldi, and near 
it comes in the swift-flowing Tresa, the outlet of Lake 
Lugano, with silk-mills along the shore. Off the pro- 
jecting western bank opposite, are rocks upon which 
are the two half -ruined castles of Cannero, the fif- 
teenth century strongholds of the powerful band of 
brigands controlling Maggiore, led by the Mazzarda, a 
family of five brothers. 

Two torrents come out of the western mountains to 
the southward of the Cannero castles and make an al- 
luvial valley wherein is built the busy factory town of 
Intra, also displaying on the quay a marble statue of 
Garibaldi, and a monument to his soldiers who fell in 
1859, while a bronze statue of Victor Emmanuel is in 
the market square. Ornate villas with sumptuous gar- 
dens surround the town and extend along the shores. 
Rounding a promontory farther southward, the spaci- 
ous West bay is entered, and the Borromean Islands 
come into view, scattered across the entrance, while 
the magnificent background of the bay is the line of 
snow-capped Alps between Monte Eosa and the Sim- 
plon. Behind the headland and facing southwestward 



150 SWITZERLAND. 

toward the haj is Pallanza, with its attractive nursery 
gardens, and great development of Italian villas ; while 
across the bay on its southwestern shore are Baveno 
and Stresa, noted as the resorts of princes and aristo- 
crats from all over Europe, who come here to escape 
the rigors of the northern winter and spring. To the 
westward rises the fine Monte Mottarone elevated 
nearly five thousand feet, with a blunt pyramidal top 
and giving a gorgeous view eastward and northward 
over the lake and the greater part of the Alpine range, 
and southward toward the Plains of Lombard}^ and 
distant Milan, while glimpses are got in this grand 
panorama of seven Italian lakes. Farther south on the 
western shore of Maggiore, is Arona, an ancient vil- 
lage devoted largeh^ to the memory of the great family 
of Borromeo, whose chapel is in the church of Santa 
Maria. Upon a commanding eminence northward, and 
in full view over the water is the colossal statue of 
the most famous man of the family, San Carlo, sev- 
enty feet high and elevated on a massive pedestal. 
Count Carlo Borromeo, the Cardinal Archbishop of 
Milan, was born here in 1538 and died in 1584, being 
canonized during the next century. This statue of 
bronze and copper was erected in 1697. 

The Borromean Islands are the property of the fam- 
ily of Borromeo, and they stretch across the West Ba}^ 
entrance. N'ear Pallanza is the little Isola San Gio- 
vanni with a chapel and gardens. Isola Madre is next, 
built up in seven terraces on its southern side facing 
the bay, and having pleasant gardens covering the 



LAKE MAGGIORE. 151 

whole surface. There is a vacant palace on the high- 
est terrace. To the southwest is Isola dei Pescatori, 
the home of a colony of fishermen. Nearer the south- 
ern shore and not far from Stresa, is the most noted of 
the group, the Isola Bella. This island originally was 
a barren rock of mica slate rising from the lake. 
Count Yitaliano Borromeo, who lived during the sev- 
enteenth century, converted it into a beautiful ter- 
raced garden displaying every feature of the luxuriant 
tropical vegetation of Italy. The construction is in 
ten terraces, rising in a pyramid, one above the other 
to a height of about one hundred feet, and crowned by 
the Chateau. Stone staircases connect the terraces, 
and the walls dividing and bordering them are crowned 
with statues, obelisks, vases and ornaments, and cov- 
ered with oranges, lemons and citrons that are trained 
upon them, loading the air with fragrance. There are 
brilliant flowxr beds, exquisite ferns growing in shady 
nooks, hanging festoons of bignonia, and the entire 
wealth of the varied Italian flora is displayed. All 
the soil had to be originally brought to the rock, and 
it has to be renewed to maintain fertility. There is a 
huge bay tree with a scar on the bark, said to have been 
made by jSTapoleon who cut the word haUagUa on it 
shortly before the battle of Marengo. A lovely view 
is had all around, of the banks of the deep blue lake; 
and the Chateau, which has a wing still unfinished, 
contains handsome halls, a picture gallery and chapel 
with Borromean monuments. This island, with its 
florid Italian decoration, has for vears been the ad- 



152 SWITZERLAND. 

miration of visitors and the target of critics, and its 
gaudy display is in sharp contrast with the humble 
homes of the fishermen across the narrow strait upon 
the Isola dei Pescatori. 

The river Tosa, coming down from Domodossola, 
flows into the head of the West Bay, while over the 
ridges to the westward is the smaller Lake of Orta, a 
beautiful oval about seven miles long, nestling among 
the mountains. Jutting into this lake is the Sacred 
Mount of Orta, covered with groves of trees, and hav- 
ing upon it twenty chapels erected in the sixteenth 
century in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, each con- 
taining a scene from his life, illustrated by groups of 
painted terra cotta figures. 

LAKE LUGANO. 

The rushing torrent of the river Tresa coming into 
the eastern side of Lake Maggiore near Luino, is the 
boundary between Switzerland and Italy. It is the 
outlet of Lake Lugano, which is at a level two hundred 
and fifty feet higher than Maggiore and about eight 
miles distant. This is the most curiously shaped lake 
of the entire Italian galaxy. It lies between Maggiore 
and Como at an elevation of nine hundred feet, with 
an area of probably a thousand square miles. Two 
massive mountains, Salvatore and Generoso, have the 
main body of the lake between them. To the north- 
ward of Salvatore, there is an expansion around its 
base into the bay where the town of Lugano is situ- 



LAKE LUGANO. 153 

ated, beyond which an arm spreads far to the north- 
east to Porlezza. Southward from Salvatore, the lake 
divides into two arms, one projected southward, the 
other turning westward and then northward in a grand 
sweep around the foothills of the mountain, and ex- 
tending far beyond the outlet of the Tresa, up north- 
ward behind Lugano, to Agno. Thus the lake en- 
tirely encircles Salvatore, excepting to the north, while 
to the east, the higher Monte Generoso and its atten- 
dant summits make a noble background. Like the 
others, the shores of this lake are a paradise of ver- 
dure, with villas, gardens and many villages nestling 
among the enclosing mountains. The steamboat 
coming out of the Strait of Lavena, at the source of 
the Tresa, traverses the almost circular west arm, and 
then turning northward, past the long indented crest 
of Generoso, sails over the main lake, goes through a 
railway drawbridge near Salvatore, rounds its ponder- 
ous flanks and halts at Lugano. 

The largest town and a capital of the Canton Ti- 
eino, Lugano is the most important place in the Ital- 
ian lake district. It is charminsrlv situated on the 
margin of its indented bay, with suburban villas 
spreading on the shores for a long distance, the lower 
hills displaying gardens and vineyards, gradually melt- 
ing into the darker forest groves, mostly chestnut and 
walnut trees, above, the Monte Salvatore southward, 
being wooded to its top. From the broad tree-planted 
esplanade fronting the town, is presented a grand 
outlook over the lake to the many mountains, rising 



154 SWITZERLAND. 

in massive summits and ridges all around the horizon. 
At the southern end of the quay, there is a fountain 
and statue of William Tell. The development of the 
town and its architecture are Italian, though the gov- 
ernment is Swiss. The people prize most the memory 
of the great painter, Bernardino Luini, who decorated 
its churches. He was a native of Luino, on Lake Mag- 
giore, not far away, and died in 1530. His most fa- 
mous frescoes are in the Church of Santa Maria degli 
Angioli. The chief of these, is the Passion, contain- 
ing an extraordinary representation of the devil and 
the angel at the Crucifixion, taking the souls out of the 
thieves' mouths and the executioners casting lots for 
Christ's garments. There are several hundred fig- 
ures in this great painting which was finished the 
year before his death. He also painted a fine Ma- 
donna, and the Last Supper. The arcaded streets, 
and workshops in the open air, are attractive, and 
the people for their recreation cross over the lake 
to the base of Monte Caprino on the eastern shore, 
where the '^Cantine" or rock-grottoes have been hewn 
out for storing the wines and serving them ice 
cold. 

Southward from the suburb of Paradiso, a cable 
railway about a mile long ascends to the summit of 
Monte Salvatore, elevated three thousand feet, and 
having on top an attractive pilgrimage chapel. This 
mountain is regarded as a geological curiosity, having 
been formed by the protrusion of a mass of porphyry 
up through the stratified limestone, with much of the 



LAKE LUGANO. 155 

latter apparently converted into dolomite where it 
joins the porphyr}'. It is interesting scientifically, 
but is annoying to pedestrians, as the combination 
makes the worst kind of angular broken stones upon 
which mountain climbers have to walk. As this sum- 
mit has the tortuous lake almost all around it, the 
view gives an idea of a mountain island, with water 
seen nearly everywhere. The top is bare rock mixed 
with short grass. The view is of singular beauty, with 
the lake below seen in every direction, enclosed by rich 
slopes and w^ooded hills, forests and many mountains, 
the ranges culminating in Monte Rosa and the snowy 
peaks of the Alps, viewed high over the lower inter- 
vening summits. 

There is a straight and distant vista view from 
Monte Salvatore, up the long northeastern arm of the 
lake, which makes the finest scenic display of its 
shores. The banks are very wild and abound in pic- 
turesque gorges. Up there is the grotto of Osteno, 
with the Pescara, or "Fishermen's Gorge," beginning 
and ending with a waterfall. A small boat threads 
the brook between, the abutting rocks curiously hol- 
lowed out by the current of a stream, and glimpses of 
the sky are seen through the overhanging foliage 
above. Beyond, at Rescia, there are tufa quarries, and 
more strange grottoes, their attractions exhibited bv 
boatmen with torches. The precipitous nortli bank of 
the lake ends at Porlezza, tlie Italian boundary, 
whence a railway leads for eight miles over the inter- 
vening watershed to Lake Como. 



156 SWITZERLAND. 



MONTE GENEROSO. 

Southward from Lugano, tunnelled under the spur 
of Monte Salvatore and then skirting the lake shore, 
leads a railway bound to Como and Milan. It sud- 
denly turns and crosses the center of Lake Lugano by 
a long and singular causeway extended beyond a long 
and narrow projection from the shore leading into 
shallow water. This viaduct has archway bridges at 
either end, allowing the passage of boats. The railway 
here crosses to Bissone, and turning southward again 
is tunnelled under the outlying spurs of Monte Gener- 
oso, and finally leaves the southern extremity of Lake 
Lugano at Capolago. From this village a cog-wheel 
funicular branch railway, constantly ascending, winds 
around the ponderous slopes of Monte Generoso, with 
a maximum gradient of 22 in 100, and in about five 
miles distance reaches the summit, elevated 5,590 feet. 
There are several hotels and stopping places, with 
villas and cottages along the line and at the top. The 
view from Monte Generoso is unrivalled as the great- 
est scenic display on the southern side of the Alps. 

This mountain has the special advantage of posi- 
tion, being considerably south of the higher Alps, and 
rising a mile high almost at the verge of the Plains of 
Lombardy. On the one side are the mountains, and on 
the other the level, fertile, sunny land stretching afar 
southward. Far below are the Lake Lugano, the dis- 



MONTE GENEROSO. 157 

tant town, and the singular viaduct by which the rail- 
way comes over the water. Immediately in front on the 
western side, rises Salvatore, with the picturesque lit- 
tle chapel on top and the distant inn, beyond which 
rise range after range of rounded, lumpy hills and 
mountains, having their magnificent background pan- 
orama of the high snow-covered Alps displayed all the 
way around from the west ta the north and east, from 
beyond Monte Eosa to the Bernina. The sharp Mat- 
terhorn peers over Rosa's shoulder, and often distant 
Monte Viso is seen, though a hundred miles away. 
Nestling nearer, but still among the peaks, are a gal- 
axy of splendid lakes. A stone, it almost seems, could 
be thrown into Lugano. Como is to the eastward, and 
Varese and Maggiore to the southwest. One can count 
a thousand mountain peaks in all directions, beyond 
and around them. 

Turning southward, the view entirely changed, 
stretches afar off over the rich Italian plains until 
lost at the horizon. Sometimes they are seen through 
the rifts of soft clouds, while often the sun dyes the 
pleasing prospect with the gorgeous tints of a Per- 
sian shawl. The little hills look like small rolling 
waves, in contrast with the rugged Alpine background 
on the other side, and the dark towns and villages are 
like brown spots dotted in a sea of verdure, the whole 
scene enclosed by the faint outlines of the distant Ap- 
ennines just traceable beyond. There are Cremona, 
Lodi, Crema, and, far southeast, Milan, with its great 
white Cathedral a glistening speck in the sunlight. 



158 SWITZERLAND. 

Such is the gorgeous view from Generoso. and in 
spring and summer the mountain is additionally at- 
tractive from its floral display. In the springtime, 
in splendid profusion the wild Laburnum hangs its 
dense bunches of yellow bloom over the dark brown 
rocks, looking like curtains and tassels of gold. Art 
has come to aid nature in the elaboration of this 
mountain's attractiveness, its fame having gone 
abroad. 

The visit to the Italian lakes fitly terminates our 
Swiss excursion among the higher Alps, and reminds 
of Addison's verse in the Letter from Italy: 

"For wheresoe'er I turn my ravished eyes, 
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise, 
Poetic fields encompass me around. 
And still I seem to tread on classic ground." 



THE UPPER RHINE. 



III. 



THE UPPER RHINE. 



Tlie ^'alley of 8witzorlaiul — jNIont St. Gotthard — Sources 
of Three Rivers — The Rhine, Rhone and Ticino — Lake 
Tonia — The Vorder Rhine — Rheinwakl Ghicier — The 
Hinter Rhine — Riclienau — Coire — General Description 
of the Rliine — \*ia iSIahi — Thiisis — Ilohen-Rluitien — 
Liechtenstein — The Tamina — Ragatz — Pfafers — Ap- 
penzell — The Sentis — St. Gall — The Upper Rheingau — 
The Bodensee — Bregenz — IJndau — Rorschach — Frieil- 
richshafen — Ueberlin<Ter See — Mainau — Constance — 
The Untersee — Gottlieben — Arenaberg — Schopeln — 
^Mittelzell — Stein — Hohentwiel — Schatrhausen — 
]\luiiot — The Rheinfall — Waldshut — The Laufenberg 

— Siickingen — Schonau — Rheinfelden — Basle — Ba- 
den — Alsace — Miilhausen — Rufach — Isenburg — 
Egisheini — Colniar — Pates de Fois Gras — Breisach — 
The Dreisani — Zahringen — Freiburg — The Black Forest 

— The Kaiserberg — Rappoltsweiler — Altweier — The 
Odilienbrunnen — Strassburg — Kelil — Achern — Ba- 
den-Baden — The Oos — Lichtenthal — Ebersteinberg — 
The Favorite Palace — The Murg — The Kinzig — Horn- 
berg — Triberg — The Gutach — Donaueschingen — 
Source of the Danube — Wolfach — Rastatt — Carjsruhe 

— Worth — Weissenburg — Neustadt — Diirkheim — 
Lind)urg Abbey — The llartenburg — Speyer — iMann- 
heim — The Neckar — Stuttgart — Canstatt — Wildbad 

— Ludwigsburg — Heilbronn — Gotz of the Iron Hand — 
Berlichingen — Mochnnihl — The Elz — The Odenwald — 
Hirschhorn — Dilsburg — Neckarsteinach — Heidelberg. 

II i6i 



162 THE RHINE. 



THE HEADWATERS. 

"Two ways the rivers 
Leap down to different seas, and as they roll 
Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence 
Becomes a benefaction to the towns 
They visit, wandering silently among them, 
Like patriarchs old among their shining tents." 

Thus Longfellow, standing upon the St. Grotthard, 
tells us in the Golden Legend, and the description well 
fits the great valley of Switzerland, north of the main 
range of the Alps. Its two noble rivers gather the 
waters of the glaciers, and flowing out in opposite di- 
rections from the St. Gotthard, the Rhone goes toward 
the southwest and the Rhine toward the northeast. 
To the northward of this deep and elongated valley, 
rise the massive mountain peaks of the Bernese Ober- 
iand, the range, as we have seen, beginning on the 
northern shore of the Lake of Geneva, and stretching 
far to the northeastward, with the Rhine breaking 
deep gorges in its eastern defiles to get through. The 
noble River of the Fatherland is among the most 
famous in Europe. It is about eight hundred miles 
long, draining the northern slopes of the Alps and the 
Plains of Switzerland, to the North Sea, the distance 
from source to ocean being four hundred and sixty 
miles in a straight line. The St. Gotthard mountain 
group, as we have already said, has high on its 



THE HEADWATERS. 163 

slopes and near together, the sources of three noted 
rivers, the Ehine, the Ehone, and the Ticino — the 
latter going southward through Lake Maggiore, to 
swell the Italian river Po. We are told that the name 
of the Rhine is of Celtic origin, but its meaning is un- 
certain, being generally regarded as signifying "flow- 
ing" or "clear." The outflow streams of at least one 
hundred and fifty Alpine glaciers unite to make the 
headwaters of the Rhine, these coming together in 
various ways, being all called, in the local dialect, 
Uhin, and forming two main streams, regarded as the 
river heads, the Vorder Rhine and the Hinter Rhine. 
The former is the larger, and its chief feeder, re- 
garded as the true source of the great river, rises in 
the little Lake Toma, on the northeast slope of the 
St. Gotthard, at nearly seventy-seven hundred feet 
elevation, and very near the source of the Rhone in its 
glacier on the western slope. This little green lake 
of a few acres, has sheer rocks standing abruptly 
above it on the southward, and discharges a rapidly 
flowing stream, which thus begins the famous river. 
The stream first flows eastward, receiving numerous 
glacial torrents, and after a course of about forty-five 
miles reaches Reichenau, where it unites with the 
Hinter Rhine. In the first twelve miles, the Vorder 
Rhine descends twelve hundred feet, and attains a 
width of fifteen feet. 

The Hinter Rhine has its birth at nearly seventy- 
three hundred feet elevation in the Rlieinwald Gla- 
cier, near the San Bernardino Pass about forty miles 



lOi THE RHINE. 

south of Eeichenau. Avalanche snow covers the in- 
fant brook in places, and lies on the adjacent slopes 
and in the ravines during the whole 3'ear. The stream 
issues from an aperture in the glacier, shaped like a 
cow^s mouth, with high mountain peaks all around it, 
and soon receives numerous other brooks that swell 
its volume. The torrent descends rapidly to the point 
of union of the two streams at Eeichenau where the 
elevation is rather less than two thousand feet, and 
the united river, thenceforward known as the Ehine, 
is about one hundred and fift}^ feet wide. The Vor- 
der brings down the most water, but is driven aside 
by the more impetuous Hinter, so that the route soon 
turns northward. The towering snow-capped Brig- 
el ser Horn overlooks the junction from the westward, 
and in the village is the ancient chateau of the Bish- 
ops of Coire, where are shown the room and memori- 
als of Louis Philippe, who in his youth here sought 
refuge from the French revolutionists in 1793. The 
sources of the Ehine are in the Canton of the Gris- 
ons, where originally lived the Ehsetians who were 
afterward conquered by the Eomans, and were in 
turn succeeded by the Ostragoths and they by the 
Franks. Coire, its capital, on the Plessur, near its 
confluence with the Ehine, was the Eoman Curia 
Ehsetorum, the seat of a bishop since the fourth cen- 
tury, and displaying various interesting Eoman re- 
mains. Northward the Ehine flows through a roman- 
tic and picturesque valley with rafts and boats navi- 
gating its waters, receiving various streams, and 



THE RIVER'S COURSE. 165 

finally discharging through a wide delta into the 
great Bodensee, the lake of Constance, at thirteen 
hundred feet elevation, this lake receiving its deposits 
and debris, and being the filter for the Ehine, as Lake 
Leman is for the Ehone. The Rhine leaves the 
smaller Untersee westward, a clear and limpid stream, 
colored the most beautiful deep green. 



THE river's course. 



The course of the Rhine from the Untersee is west- 
ward to Basle, it being nearly all the way practicall}^ 
the boundary between Switzerland and Germany, and 
at Basle it has descended to eight hundred feet ele- 
vation and is nearly six hundred feet wide. Here the 
Rhine is but ninety miles from its source though its 
tortuous course has been two hundred and fifty miles. 
Below the Untersee it encounters the spurs of the 
Jura and the gneiss of the Black Forest, causing it to 
descend various falls and rapids, of which the most 
noted is the cataract at Schaffhausen. At Basle, its 
general course turns northward through Germany, 
at first in a wide and shallow valley between the par- 
allel ranges of the Vosges and the Black Forest, but 
at Bingen encountering gorges that give it the great- 
est beauty, the enclosing rocky hills compressing the 
river, until below the Seven Mountains, it runs out of 
the hills, and gradually enters the flat region of the 
Low Countries, beyond Cologne and Dusseldorf. 
Then it. divides into numerous branches forming an 



166 THE RHINE. 

enormous delta, until its many mouths discharge by 
sluggish flow into the N'orth Sea and the Zuyder Zee. 

We are told that the Ehine receives over twelve 
thousand tributaries of all sizes. It connects the 
highest Alps with the mud deposits of low-lying Hol- 
land, and discloses an interesting geological study. 
Its upper valley was the bed of an ancient lake, of 
which the shores were formed by the gneiss and gran- 
ites of the Black Forest, on the one hand and the 
granites and sandstones of the Vosges on the other. 
In that era, the primeval ocean is said to have reached 
to Bonn, and the rocky gorge from Bonn up to Bin- 
gen is regarded as the most ancient survival of the 
original river channel, existing before the upper lake 
had broken down its enclosing barriers. This gorge 
has become the most picturesque part of the Rhine, 
largely due to the grotesque shapes of the quartzose 
rocks, denuded of the less durable slates and sand- 
stones, while around Coblentz and the Seven Moun- 
tains below, the basalts contribute to the river's 
scenic charms. 

From the earliest times the Ehine has been a great 
water-route. The Romans improved its navigation 
and placed in charge. Prefects of the Rhine, who con- 
trolled the shipping and exacted moderate dues to pay 
the cost of keeping the channel open. This policy 
was continued by the Franks, but afterward its banks 
came under the rule of a number of petty and rival 
princes, each levying toll upon passing vessels, until 
in the aggregate the exactions were so onerous as to 



THE R1VER\S COURSE. 167 

seriously curtail (.'omniorcc. ^Tanv ol' these small })()- 
tentates got the bulk of their revenues in tliis way. 
and in the eighteenth century it was said that the 
comparatively meagre amount of tlie sliipping was 
actually taxed $1,000,000 a year. In tlie latter part 
of that century, France proposed making the "Rhine 
free, but Holland opposed, and the river was not ac- 
tually freed of dues upon its internal commerce until 
1831, when Holland aoreed to limit the dues to a mod- 
erate tariff on foreign ships, and in 18G9 all restric- 
tions were removed. Steamboats first appeared on the 
Rhine in 1817. It is navigable for nearly six 
hundred miles from Basle to its mouth, most of this 
distance being within Germany. The channel is ordi- 
narily very shallow above Strassburg, and the deepest 
point is near St. Goar, opposite the famous Lurlei 
Rock, seventy-five feet. The great timber rafts floated 
down the Rhine are among its picturesque sights. 
They come out from the tributaries as single tree 
trunks, or small rafts, and are put together generally 
near Andernach below Coblentz, being several hun- 
dred feet long, and having two to four hundred men 
who navigate them, living in huts aboard, so that they 
are actual floating villages. These rafts have to be 
handled with great care, and sometimes require four 
to six weeks in floatino; with the current from Binsren 
to Dort, where they are broken up and sold, a single 
raft sometimes fetching $150,000. 

There are railways along both Rhine shores, and 
vast armies of tourists annually visit the great river. 



168 THE RHINE. 

For ninety miles, between Mayence and Bonn, there 
are vineyards, the choicest being in the Eheingau, a 
district about twelve miles long near Bingen. There 
are many noted cities along the banks, and the his- 
tory of this majestic river is in reality the history of 
Western Europe. The Celts first peopled it; then 
came the Teutons, beginning in the fourth century 
before the Christian era. The Eomans afterward 
appeared and opposed the advancing Teutonic tide, 
so that for two centuries the river was the political 
boundary and battle ground between the two opposing 
races. But the Teutonic legions ultimately pushed 
the Eomans back and occupied the whole Ehenish 
region. Charlemagne came and ruled it, and in later 
years the river has witnessed many conflicts between 
the Germans and the French, until the great war of 
1870-71, as has been well said, made the Ehine once 
more "Germany's river, not Germany's frontier." 
This noble stream has always fascinated the German 
mind, and "Father Ehine" is the symbol of German 
patriotism. It has ever been prominent in German 
legend and literature, and its historic interest fully 
equals that of the Tiber. 

THUSIS, LIECHTENSTEIN, RAGATZ. 

Someone who has gone down the Ehine has re- 
corded that from its sources to its mouth there are 
along the banks, crowning the hill-tops and origin- 
ally controlling the river passage, no less than seven 



THUSLS, LIECHTENSTEIN, RAGATZ. 169 

hundred and twenty-five castles, formerly the homes 
of warlike chiefs, many of them renowned in song 
and story. Following the Hinter Rhine, almost from 
the glacier source, is the ancient and picturesque 
road known as the Via Mala. Until recently this road 
was but four feet wide, but it has been broadened 
and improved. To it comes from over the Alps the 
Splugen Pass, at Thusis, the ancient Roman town of 
Tusaun, romantically situated in the deep gorge. 
Here, on a rock rising almost sheer, eight hundred 
feet above the boiling little torrent, is one of the most 
famous castles of the Rhine, now in ruins. It is the 
oldest castle of Switzerland, the Hohen-Rhatien, said 
to have been built in the year 589 B. C. by the legend- 
ary Rhsetus, who led the Etruscan hosts in their re- 
treat before the invasion of the Gauls, to these moun- 
tain fastnesses. An amphitheatre of high mountains 
guards the southern view, the massive Heinzenberg 
rising eight thousand feet. 

Northward along the eastern bank of the Rhine, 
before it empties into the Bodensee, stretches the 
diminutive kingdom of Liechtenstein, interposed be- 
tween Switzerland and Austria. Here is the village 
of Buchs, having the Swiss Custom House on the 
western river bank, and on the opposite side is Va- 
duz, at the base of the Drei Schwestern mountains — 
the Three Sisters — rising nearly seven thousand feet. 
High on the mountain slope above the river, is the 
white castle which is the capitol of this little king- 
dom of about sixty-one square miles, where the val- 



170 THE RHINE. 

iant King Johann rules over ten thousand people and 
keeps in friendly alliance with Austria. There is a 
Parliament, and there used to be maintained a for- 
midable standing army of sixty-odd men, but on ac- 
count of the expense it was some time ago disbanded. 
Beyond the southern verge of this little kingdom, 
there flows into the Khine from the southwest, the 
boisterous glacier torrent, the Tamina, and in its 
gorge is the noted watering place of Eagatz, many 
thousands visiting its healing baths. There is an ex- 
cellent Kursaal in the village, its open colonnade giv- 
ing a fine view over the valley of the Ehine. Here 
died the philosopher Schelling in 1854, and his monu- 
ment is in the cemetery. High above the village is the 
ancient ruined castle of Freudenberg. The baths of 
Eagatz are fed from the warm springs of Pfafers, a 
couple of miles distant, in the narrow and gloomy ra- 
vine. They are impregnated slightly with lime, so- 
dium and magnesia, and piped in copious supply 
to the bathing establishments. This famous gorge 
of the Tamina surpasses most others in gloomy 
grandeur and wildness. A carriage road gently as- 
cends to the mouth of the glen, and the backward 
view from out the gorge is of the houses and mead- 
ows along the Ehine, and the distant mountains. In 
front a precipice of dark slate rises on one side, and on 
the other a steep fir-clad slope. Trees are all about 
and each turn of the gorge presents a new display of 
crag, torrent and wood. Thus the road ascends 
within, until it ends at a massive building used for a 



Gorge of the Tamina. 



THUSIS, LIECHTENSTEIN, RAGATZ. 171 

bath-house, and the cliffs all around make a barrier. 
At the back of the house, however, the rocks are cleft 
by a narrow fissure, through which the torrent rushes 
with little room to spare. 

Passing through the house, and entering the fis- 
sure, its sides are found to be inclined, so that the 
cliff on one side gradually overhangs the narrow pas- 
sage, the rocks being cleft in an incline, and the lean- 
ing walls are only a few feet apart. The torrent oc- 
cupies the whole space below, and the passageway is 
upon a platform about thirty feet above it, supported 
by beams and hung from above. As one advances the 
gloom deepens, not a ray of sunlight penetrating the 
profound depths of the narrow fissure. High above, a 
few trees and bushes can be seen extending their 
branches over the verge, but most of the time the top 
cannot be seen at all. Sometimes the walls close over- 
head, making the place like a lofty vault. Soon a 
steam jet is seen, rising from the warm springs. The 
heads of the springs are protected by a vault of ma- 
sonry and are approached through short tunnels, the 
temperature of the waters being about 100°. As 
early as the eleventh centur}^, these famous springs 
were known. For a long time the unfortunate pa- 
tients were lowered into the gorge from the top, sus- 
pended by ropes till they got down to a little ledge 
of rocks close by the outflow, and here they were left 
with a supply of food, until they had gone through 
the "course," when they were hauled out. Such 
rough treatment was hardly calculated to cure. The 



172 THE RHINE. 

gorge immediately above the springs is inaccessible, 
but the torrent rushes down the fissure for a long 
distance. The village of Pfafers is high above the 
gorge on the mountain between it and the Rhine, at 
twenty-seven hundred feet elevation, the road to it 
going over the gorge by a natural bridge, more than 
two hundred feet higher than the springs, called the 
Beschluss. Here was the old Benedictine Abbey of 
Pfafers, giving the place its name, the buildings now 
used for a lunatic asylum. 

APPENZELL AND ST. GALL. 

The Rhine intervale, here known as the Upper 
Rheingau, broadens below Liechtenstein, and becomes 
a wide and fertile delta from the river deposits as the 
great Bodensee, the Lake of Constance, is approached. 
The mountain ridges gradually recede, and the valley 
is dotted with villages and cottages. To the westward 
rises the dominating peak of the Alps of Appenzell, 
the snow-clad Sentis, 8,215 feet, having at the summit 
a small inn and a meteorological station. There are 
two summits, the northern, called the Grirespitz, being 
about two hundred feet lower. A magnificent view is 
disclosed over the Rhine valley and far extending 
Bodensee, all the way around from Bern over Ger- 
many and the distant Tyrolean Alps to the eastward 
beyond the Engadine. Near the northeastern base is 
Appenzell, the capital of the Canton, where are two 
old monasteries. It is a curious fact that the Canton 



APPENZELL AND ST. GALL. 173 

is entirely surrounded by the Canton of St. Gallen, 
and this village formerly was the country seat of the 
Abbots of St. Gallen, whence came its name, a cor- 
ruption of Abbatis Cella. This Canton is a prolific 
cattle-raising and cheese-making district and here are 
found some of the most noted "whe3^-resorts" among 
them Gais, where that treatment has been in vogue 
since the middle of the eighteenth century. These 
places are at comparatively high elevations and are 
reached by rack-and-pinion and other inclined rail- 
ways from the Ehine valley and the towns on the 
lake. 

To the northward and nearer the lake, is St. Gal- 
len, the great Swiss emporium of embroidered cotton 
goods and, the chief town of the district, having a 
population of over thirty thousand. It is at an eleva- 
tion of more than twenty-two hundred feet, among 
the foot-hills of the Alps extending northward from 
the Sentis range and has an admirable position, being 
known popularly as St. Gall. The famous Irish monk, 
St. Gallus or St. Gall, was the apostle of Switzerland 
and lived in the sixth and seventh centuries. He 
came out of Ireland in the retinue of St. Columbanus 
for the evangelization of the heathen in France and 
Germany, and ultimately separating from them when 
they crossed the Alps into Italy, St. Gall and some 
associates came to Bregenz on the Bodensee, where 
they found a chapel in the ruins of an old castle, with 
three gilded images which the Pagan Helvetians wor- 
shipped. St. Gall preached with fervor and he im- 



174 THE RHINE. 

pressed the multitude by breaking into pieces the 
images^ thus proving the falsity of their idols. 

Then the saint fell sick^ but convalescing, he and a 
companion went out and wandered through the neigh- 
boring forest covering the hillslopes adjoining the 
Ehine valley, till by divine guidance they were shown 
the spot where they should fix their abode in the wil- 
derness. Here they built their hut and little chapel, 
and here St. Gall ministered to the Helvetians, edu- 
cated the youth, and founded the religious establish- 
ment afterward becoming the Abbey of St. Gall, 
around which the town grew. Its monks were among 
the great missionaries in Switzerland, and the Saint 
died here about 646. The Abbey, which was after- 
ward controlled by the Benedictines, became one of 
the leading seats of learning from the eighth to the 
tenth centuries, and advanced in wealth and power. 
It was suppressed under the French domination in 
1805, and the buildings are now used for the Cantonal 
offices and the bishop's residence. There is a large li- 
brary, originally collected by the Abbey with many 
ancient manuscripts. The river Steinach comes from 
the south out of the mountains through a picturesque 
gorge, and flows northward a rapid stream down to 
Lake Constance, having a railway built along the ra- 
vine to the shore at Rorschach, about nine hundred 
feet lower. In the beautiful tributary gorge of the 
Martinstobel, where the Goldach flows, a man was ac- 
cidentally killed in the early tenth century, which had 
such eifect upon the monk Notker, who saw the trag- 



THE BODENSEE. 175 

edy, that he composed the original Latin version of 
"In the midst of life we are in death/' There are 
admirable views from the hilltops around St. Gall, 
far over the lake to the northern shores. 

THE BODENSEE. 

The constantly broadening Ehine intervale, the 
Upper Rheingau, becoming several miles wide, the 
Ehine wanders over it in various vagaries, finally 
turning northwest toward Lake Constance. The vil- 
lages cluster on the enclosing hills on either side, 
while the flat floor of the valley has been subject to 
overflow and damage. In 1893, the Swiss and Aus- 
trian governments together began a series of canals to 
control the river current, cut off its windings, and 
regulate its discharge northward into the lake. There 
are two broad canals, one three and the other four 
miles long, and the works are still in progress. Thus 
the Rhine comes out through a wide delta to the 
Bodensee, its surface being at an elevation of about 
thirteen hundred feet. This lake is the extensive 
filter of the Rhine, being over two hundred square 
miles in area and forty miles long, while the width 
sometimes exceeds seven or eight miles. Its shores 
are more gentle than those of most other Swiss lakes, 
but the banks are picturesque and the scenery fine, 
the distant Appenzell range of the Alps running up to 
the snow-clad Sentis, dominating the southern shore. 
Five different nations control its borders, and it is 



176 THE RHINE. 

therefore a great neutral sea, with a mixture of cus- 
tom houses to perplex the traveller, for abutting on 
the shores are Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria, Wurt em- 
berg and Baden. At the head of the lake is Bregenz, 
an Austrian port, nestling among an amphitheatre 
of hills. This was the Eoman Brigantium, whence 
came the earliest name of the Bodensee, the Lacus 
Brigantinus. The older town on a height above the 
newer settlement on the shore, was the site of the 
Eoman Castrum, and of its two gates one yet survives. 
The Arlburg Pass crosses the mountains from Bre- 
genz to the Lower Engadine. Around on the north- 
ern shore, reached by a railway, as well as by steam- 
boats, there being many lines on the lake, for each na- 
tion has its own, is the Bavarian port of Lindau, ^ 
looking out upon the grand but distant display of the 
Alps all along the southern horizon. This town, on 
an island near the bank, was also a Eoman settlement, 
and a venerable tower is yet shown which belonged to 
their fortifications. The harbor entrance is between 
piers, one having a lighthouse on its end, and the 
other a colossal marble lion, twenty feet high. There 
are several quaint and interesting buildings, among 
them a Town Hall of the fifteenth century, with 
painted fronts, which is now a museum of antiquities. 
Eorschach, a port of Switzerland is opposite on the 
southern shore, while another of its ports, Eomans- 
horn, is on a promontory to the westward, jutting 
out boldly into the lake. 

Friedrichshafen, the port of Wurtemberg, and ter- 



THE BODEXSEE. 177 

minus of the railway from Stuttgart, is on the north- 
ern bank opposite Romanshorn, and is a popular bath- 
ing resort for the Suabians, having a pleasant park 
fronting the lake. Far beyond stretches the long 
northwestern arm of the lake, known as the Ueber- 
linger See, and part of the territory of Baden, Up 
there, near the southwestern shore, is the island of 
Mainau, once the home of the knights of the Teutonic 
Order, whose symbol, the cross, is marked on the side 
of the chateau, built in the eighteenth century. This 
is one of the pleasure grounds of the people of Con- 
stance and is now the property of the Grand Duke of 
Baden. Behind it rises the ridge separating this bay 
from the bay of Constance to the southward, termi- 
nating with a bold promontory. 

The town of Constance, which is the port of Baden 
on the Bodensee, covers the western shore of a bay, 
on the northern side of which the clear waters of the 
Ehine flow rapidly out of the lake. This old town, 
the chief one of the Bodensee, now has about twenty 
thousand population. It fronts finely, with a good 
view far over the dark green water and the mountains 
from the Stadt Garten, nearly in the centre, where 
the band plays in the summer and the people congre- 
gate on pleasant evenings. To the northward, on an 
island near the shore, was the old Dominican Mon- 
astery around which the town grew, its buildings, now 
a hotel, of which the former church is the dining 
room. The ancient cloisters, with their frescoes, are 
well preserved. Adjoining is the rapid outflow of the 



178 THE RHINE. 

Ehine, with a tree-shaded esplanade on its shores. 
Constance was originally ruled by the Monastery, 
but became a free town of the Empire, and after the 
Reformation was subject to Austria. Early in the 
nineteenth century, Napoleon took it away, however, 
and gave it to Baden. It was made a bishopric 
in the eighth century and had had eighty-seven 
bishops, when the see was removed to Freiburg in 
1827. The most prominent building is the Cathedral 
founded in the eleventh century, and subsequently 
rebuilt, the Gothic tower two hundred and fifty feet 
high, and open spire, being of modern construction. 
It has carved oaken doors and choir stalls of the fif- 
teenth century, and various sculptures. The impres- 
sive memory of this Cathedral is of the trial of John 
Huss. In the nave is a large stone slab, with a white 
spot always dry when the remainder is damp. The 
tradition is that on this spot, Huss stood in July, 
1415, when the Council of Constance sentenced him 
to be burned at the stake for heresy. This Council 
was summoned in 1414 to adjust differences in the 
church causing a schism by which the "Anti-Popes" 
of Avignon had been chosen and there were three 
popes in office, and after nearly four years it brought 
about an arrangement. Its meeting was the greatest 
event in the history of the town during the middle 
ages. 

John Huss was a native of Bohemia, born in 1373, 
who advanced high in the church, and became Presi- 
dent of the Faculty of Theology in the University of 



THE BODENSEE. 179 

Prague. He was a leading Reformer and espoused 
the cause of John A^Vcliffe. Denouncing abuses, he 
was accused of heresy and repeatedly summoned to 
Eome, but did not go. In 1414, at the suggestion of 
the Emperor Sigismund of Germany and other rulers, 
tired of the church schism, the Council of Constance 
was convened, and he was cited to appear, being 
granted a safe conduct by the Emperor. He came to 
Constance in the autumn, was treated with considera- 
tion, but in N"oYember was arrested and im- 
prisoned in the Dominican Monastery on the island. 
Soon afterward he was taken to the Castle of Gottlie- 
ben, about three miles down the Ehine and put in a 
dungeon where he was heavily chained. He was 
brought back to the Monastery for trial in June, 
1415, and condemned by the Council. Refusing to 
abjure his alleged heresies he was burnt at the stake 
July 6th, his forty-second birthday, the ashes of the 
embers being gathered and cast into the Ehine, so as 
to obliterate all traces. His disciple, Jerome of 
Prague, who defended him, was similarly condemned 
and burnt. May 30th, 1416. 

Constance abounds in memorials of the martyrs. 
About a half-mile westward, the spot where they 
were burnt is marked by a large boulder called the 
"Husenstein." The house where Huss was arrested 
stands on the Husen-Strasse, and is marked by a tab- 
let, with his portrait. Behind it, the place where 
Jerome was imprisoned, is similarly marked by a tab- 
let. Adjoining the Stadt-Garten, and fronting the 



180 THE RHINE. 

lake is the ancient Kauphaus, or Merchants' Hall. It 
contains a fine apartment about one hundred and 
sixty feet long, the roof borne by massive oaken 
columns, which has been restored and adorned with 
frescoes emblematic of the town's history. Here the 
Council met and tried Hnss, and here in 1^18, as the 
result of the deliberations in ending the schism, the 
conclave of cardinals assembled and elected Pope 
Martin V., Colonna, as the head of the reunited 
church. There are several museums and collections of 
antiquities in Constance, and numbers of the old 
buildings are historical. In the market place is a 
monument to the soldiers who fell in the FrancO' 
German war of 1870-71. 

THE UNTERSEE TO THE RHEIJ^^FALL. 

A fine bridge crosses the Ehine just at the outlet of 
the lake, carrying the railway and highway over to 
the northern suburb of Petershausen, where are the 
extensive military barracks of the Baden troops. The 
Ehine flows out of the spacious Bodensee, and after a 
short course between flat and marshy banks for most 
of the distance, enters the smaller Untersee. Xear 
the entrance is Gottlieben where John Huss was im- 
prisoned, the castle having been restored by IN'apoleon 
III. From the hill behind it, the imposing Chateau 
of Castel has a good view over the Untersee, and the 
spacious island of Eichenau in the centre, with the 
Zellersee beyond, the northwestern arm of the lake. 



UNTERSEE TO THE RHEINFALL. 181 

At Arenaberg on the southern shore of the Untersee, 
lived Napoleon III. in early life, with his mother 
Queen Hortense, who died in 1837. It is now a mu- 
seum of relics of the Napoleonic d^^nasty. The island 
of Eichenau, off in the lake, is visited by the steam- 
boats, and displays the ruined tower of the famous 
castle of Schopeln, which was destroyed in the four- 
teenth century. Upon this island was a celebrated 
Benedictine Abbey, founded in the eighth century, 
which, after existing for a thousand years, was secu- 
larized in the French Eevolution. Its Abbey church 
at the chief' village, Mittelzell, was consecrated 
in 806, and in it is the tomb of Charlemagne's great- 
grandson, Charles the Fat, who was dethroned near 
the close of the ninth century. 

The shores all about display chateaus and pleasant 
views, with a noble mountain background to the south- 
ward, and the Ehine in front gradually narrowing as 
it flows out of the Untersee. Here is the old town of 
Stein, with ancient Hohenklingen on the hill to the 
northward, now a summer hotel. Farther northward 
from the Ehine rise the series of volcanic peaks of the 
Hegau, the Hohenhowen, over twenty-eight hundred 
feet, the double peaked Hohenstoffein, the Magdeberg, 
and others. The ruins of ancient castles are scattered 
among them; and, upon a lofty isolated rock, an out- 
post of Wurtemberg, frowning upon us from an ele- 
vation of nearly twenty-three hundred feet is the pon- 
derous fortress of Hohentwiel, the imposing ruins 
commanding a superb view for many miles over the 



182 THE RHINE. 

lakes and valleys. It was noted for its grand defence 
by the Wnrtemberg commandant Widerholt during 
the protracted Thirty Years^ War, and his monument 
is erected there. Being one of the southern outposts 
of Germany on the Swiss frontier it also displays a 
monument to Bismarck. The French destroyed this 
fortress at the close of the eighteenth century. 

The Swiss Canton of Schaffhausen adjoins to the 
southward and spreading along the winding and pic- 
turesque Ehine is its capital Schaffhausen. Its Miins- 
ter, an early Romanesque basilica constructed in the 
eleventh century, and recently restored, is now the 
Protestant parish church. The old bell of this 
church, cast in 1486, suggested Schiller's Lied von 
der GlocTce, and a few years ago, being replaced by 
a more modern bell, was removed to the Public Mu- 
seum. There is an elaborate Promenade, with a high 
terrace, overlooking the Alps and the Rhine valley, 
and here is displayed a bust of the Swiss historian 
Von Miiller, born at Schaffhausen in 1752. The an- 
cient castle of Munot rises above the town, its stupen- 
dous round tower, over one hundred and fifty feet in 
diameter having walls sixteen feet thick. 

The Rhine flows in winding course southwest from 
Schaffhausen, and about two miles away is the famous 
Rheinfall, regarded as the most attractive in the vol- 
ume of the waters in Central Europe. An irregular 
rocky ledge diverts the current and crosses the river, 
the Rhine taking three leaps over it, and describing a 
semicircle around it. On the northern bank, the ledge 



Rheinfall at Schaffhausen. 



BASLE. 183 

is about fifty feet, and on the southern bank sixty 
feet high. For some distance above there are rapids 
which make the total descent of the waters about one 
hundred feet. They are seen at their best in early 
summer, when the melting snows swell the current. 
Several limestone rocks rise above the falls amid the 
rushing waters, and the central and highest rock has 
a small pavilion for sightseers, which may be reached 
by boat, and gives an excellent view. The geologists 
think, from the absence of all mention of this superb 
cataract in ancient history, the first record being in 
the tenth century, that the falls did not exist before 
that time, but were made by the gradual erosion of 
the softer rocks environing the river bed below them. 
A picturesque railway bridge of nine arches is car- 
ried across the river just above the falls. There are 
many points of good outlook at the magnificent dis- 
play of brilliant emerald-green foaming waters that 
continually thunder down this superb cataract. 

BASLE. 

Through the most beautiful mountain foot-hill 
scenery the Rhine flows westward toward Basle. The 
river elevation at the foot of the Eheinfall is not quite 
twelve hundred feet above sea level and at Basle eight 
hundred and thirty feet, the distance being about 
sixty miles, and the swift-flowing stream containing 
many rapids. It receives the Aar from the south, near 
Waldshut, which greatly expands tlie current, and a 



184 THE RHINE. 

short distance beyond the Alb comes in from the 
northward, out of the spurs of the Black Forest. 
Farther westward are the formidable rapids of the 
Laufen, above which rise the ruined castle and an- 
cient watchtowers of the Laufenberg, the pleasant 
village spreading at their base. The Murg then flows 
in, and four miles westward is Sackingen, its double- 
towered church being conspicuous, and its old castle 
having been immortalized in ScheffePs poem, Der 
Trompeter von Sackingen. This poem, which was 
published in 1854, created a profound impression, 
and became one of the patriotic lyrics of the newly 
forming German Empire. The house where Scheffel 
lived still stands near the river, and in full view of 
the castle of Schonau, where the wandering Heidel- 
berg student, Werner Kirchofer, the "Trumpeter,^' 
performed his deeds of heroism, and found his sweet- 
heart, the fair maid of Schonau. On the chapel of the 
old church is their tombstone, Werner having died in 
1690, and his wife in 1691. This formerly stood be- 
hind the castle garden and is said to have suggested 
the theme to the poet. Beyond Sackingen, the foot- 
hills of the Black Forest recede, and traversing the 
wide and fertile plain fronting them, we leave the 
river at the boiling rapids of the Hollenhaken, where 
the swelling torrent wildly dashes over the rocks, 
fronting the ancient fortress-town of Eheinfelden, 
which was battered in numerous sieges when it was 
a frontier post of the Holy Eoman Empire. It came 
to Switzerland a hundred years ago. 



BASLE. 185 

Soon we are at Basle, where the Rhine sweeps 
grandly around from west to north, through the city, 
and is crossed by several bridges, from which there 
are admirable views. The centre bridge is the most 
ancient and famous, the Alte Ehein-Briicke, a quaint 
timber construction of the early thirteenth century. 
Upon it are a chapel, and a column bearing a barome- 
ter and surmounting weather-cock. Three small trib- 
utaries flow into the Ehine within the city, one of 
these, the Birsig, coming out between the two hills 
on the western bank upon which is built the older 
town. The newer parts are on the eastern side, and 
have greatly expanded in recent years through the 
development of manufacturing which has made Basle 
the second city in Switzerland with a hundred thou- 
sand population. The origin of Basle is remote. The 
Eomans had a colony near here early in the Christian 
era, but when their armies were forced back from 
Gaul to the Ehine in the fourth century, this settle- 
ment first appears in history as Basilea, and in mem- 
ory of this the heraldic symbol of Basle, the basilisk, 
is seen in various places, and also on each end of the 
elaborate modern bridge, the Wettstein Briicke, span- 
ning the Ehine. Basle was a free town of the Empire, 
and its Canton entered the Swiss Confederation in 
1501. Its great memory of the middle ages was its 
University founded in 1460 by Pope Pius II., which 
subsequently attracted to the town the learned Eras- 
mus, the greatest scholar and philosopher of his time. 
Desidiorus Erasmus, who was born in Rotterdam 



186 THE RHINE. 

about 1466, after wandering over Europe, teaching, 
lecturing, and receiving degrees from learned bodies 
and the homage of kings and emperors, came to Basle 
in 1521, and dying here in 1536, his tomb is in the 
Miinster. This great church is most conspicuous in 
all views of the city, its red sandstone walls, bright 
roof and slender towers being seen from afar. Prior 
to the Eeformation it was the Cathedral of Basle, and 
having been completely restored is now its most his- 
torical and attractive building. 

The Emperor, Henry IL, founded the Miinster in 
the early eleventh century, but the oldest portions 
date from the close of the twelfth century. In 1356, 
a fire resulting from an earthquake did serious dam- 
age, and it was rebuilt and consecrated anew, a few 
years afterward. The northern portal, known as St. 
Gallus Gateway, remains of the original Romanesque 
construction, its statues, reliefs and ornamentation 
being well preserved. The choir is also of this period, 
while the western front, towers and other parts are 
of the later Gothic. The towers are tasteful and ex- 
ceed two hundred feet in height. The sculptures on 
the fagade reproduce the Virgin and Child, having 
under them the Emperor Henry and the Empress 
Kunigunde, with a model of the church. The side 
entrances are ornamented with statues of the two 
saints most admired in that period — St. George and 
the dragon and St. Martin. The interior is over two 
hundred feet long and about half as wide, being a 
nave with double aisles. The pulpit and the font are 



BASLE. 187 

of the fifteenth century, and upon a pillar opposite 
the latter is the tombstone of Erasmus. The tombs 
include also that of the Empress Anna, who died in 
1281, the consort of the noted Rudolph of Hapsburg. 
Extensive cloisters adjoin the southern side of the 
Miinster, being used for a long period as a cemetery. 
They now stretch as a promenade to the terrace of the 
Pfalz, behind the church, elevated some seventy feet 
above the Ehine, and overlooking the river valley and 
the distant hills of the Black Forest. Near by is the 
house where Erasmus died, while at the entrance to 
the cloisters, facing the Eittergasse, stands the statue 
of another famous townsman, John Ecolampadius, 
the Reformer, who died in 1531. The Great Council 
of Basle, the most noted body convened here, sum- 
moned to secure "a reformation of the church in 
head and members," began its sessions in the Miinster 
in 1431, some five hundred clergy, including the high- 
est church dignitaries, attending. The problem was 
debated for years without result, until Pope Eugene 
IV. excommunicated the Council, and it was dissolved 
in 1448. 

There is an attractive Museum in Basle, of Eth- 
nography and Art, the latter containing many paint- 
ings and drawings by Holbein the Younger, who was 
born at x4ugsburg in 1497, and lived many years here. 
The Basle Rathhaus or Town Hall was built in the 
Burgundian style, beginning in 1506, and has an elab- 
orate panelled Council Hall. In the court stands the 
statue of Munatius Plancus, who founded the first 



188 THE RHINE. 

Roman colony near Basle in the year 27 B. C. There 
is a great Swiss Historical Museum in the old Bar- 
fiisser church, built in the fourteenth century, and 
having an admirable choir with lofty roof. There are 
many noted curiosities in this museum, among them 
the Lallenkonig, which is a curious mechanism for- 
merly upon the tower of the old bridge over the Ehine; 
whenever the clock struck, the head stuck out its 
tongue and rolled its eyes. Basle has attractive sub- 
urbs with elegant residences. In the Spalen suburb 
to the westward is the finest of the remaining old 
gates of the city, the Spalen Thor, built about 1400. 
Near by are some of the modern buildings of the Uni- 
versity, including the handsome Library, containing 
over two hundred thousand volumes and many pre- 
cious manuscripts, much of these relating to the Great 
Council and the time of the Eef ormation. 

MULHAUSEN", COLMAR, BREISACH. 

The Ehine flows northward from Basle through a 
broadening and fertile valley. On either side are 
somewhat distant ranges of mountains, sending down 
their tributaries to swell its current. The great river, 
now in the German Fatherland, from Basle all the way 
to Mannheim, flows at the edge of the extensive plain 
of Baden, which at the eastern horizon runs up into 
the hills and forests of the famous Schwarzwald, 
the Black Forest. Upon the western shore is 
Alsace, the country of the "Sassen'' (settlers) 



Basle-The Spalen Thor 



MULHAUSEN, COLMAR, BREISACH. ]89 

on the 111, its chief river, coming down out 
of the Vosges on its western verge, which 
forms the French boundary. During centuries, this 
war-battered province was a bone of contention 
between the ancient Gaul and Teuton, the conflict 
renewed by the more modern French and Germans. 
It was the Eoman Alsatia, fought for in Caesar's time, 
and in a later period the French have repeatedly 
pushed their eastern frontier across it, to the Rhine, 
only to be beaten back by the Germans, to the Vosges 
mountains. Since the Franco-German war of 1870- 
71, it has been a German province, surrendered by the 
vanquished as part of the price of peace. 

About twenty miles northwestward from Basle, in 
the region of the Sundgau, and west of the Ehine, is 
the chief Alsatian city, Miilhausen, which has greatly 
grown in modern development through the expan- 
sion of its manufactures, which cover a wide range. 
It was anciently, like so many others in the Rhine 
valley, a free city of the Empire, and for nearly three 
centuries prior to Napoleon's time was allied with 
Switzerland. The mediaeval Rathhaus, in the older 
town, is almost the only survival of its ancient im- 
portance. The Rhone-Rhine Canal now divides this 
from the newer town, which has had a recent prodig- 
ious expansion, for the population now approximates 
ninety thousand. There is an interesting Museum of 
Alsatian history and antiquities. The heights around 
the city give charming views over the Rhine valley. 
Across to the westward all along is the range of 



190 THE RHINE. 

the Vosges mountains, ascending to their highest peak, 
the Grosse Belchen, rising nearly forty-seven hundred 
feet. This peak is also known as the Sulzer Belchen, 
or Gebweiler, and the French viewing it from their 
side of the range, call it the Ballon de Soultz. Farther 
northward is Rufach, the Eoman Eubeacum, with a 
guardian hill whereon stands the ancient Alsatian 
castle of Isenburg, often occupied by the early Frank- 
ish kings. Upon its ruins has been built a modern 
structure. Beyond, at Egisheim is the famous castle 
of Dreien-Egisheim, so called from its three towers, 
seen from afar — the Wahlenburg and the Wekmund, 
built in the eleventh century, and the Dagsburg, of 
the twelfth century, they being together called the 
Drei-Exen. One of the counts of Egisheim and Dags- 
burg in the eleventh century, became Pope Leo IX. 

About twenty-six miles north of Miilhausen, is Col- 
mar, the antique Eoman Columbaria, on the Lauch, 
a tributary of the 111, and ten miles westward from the 
Ehine. This was another free city of the Empire, 
and for six years in the fifteenth century, defied and 
opposed Charles the Bold of Burgundy, when through 
a treaty with Austria he became master of the Breis- 
gau on the eastern shore of the Ehine, of the Sund- 
gau to the westward, and of most of Alsace. It was 
battered considerably in later wars, but has flourished 
recently through its manufactures and arts. The 
greatest German artist of the fifteenth century, Mar- 
tin Schongauer, was born at Colmar, and it was also 
the birthplace, in 1834, of the famous French sculp- 



MULHAUSEN, COLMAR, liRElSACH. 191 

tor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi. Possibly, however, 
much of its later fame also rests upon the achieve- 
ments of Jean Mangold, its noted pastry-cook, who 
was a poet as well, and living for seventy-one years 
in the nineteenth centur}^, composed local songs and 
idylls, and made the most luscious pates de fois gras, 
for we have now come into this region of world-wide 
celebrity which produces that much-enjoyed product 
of the overgrown goose liver. There are various mon- 
uments here to local celebrities, by Bartholdi, among 
them General Eapp and Admiral Bruat. Its elaborate 
church of St. Martin, recently restored, dates from 
1350, while the Dominican Nunnery of Unterlinden, 
founded in 1232, which was an early headquarters of 
the German Mystics, and suppressed in the French 
Revolution, is now used for a Museum of antiquities 
and art. In its Early Gothic cloisters, Bartholdi has 
erected an attractive monument to the artist Schon- 
gauer. 

Eastward from Colmar, on the Ehine, is Breisach. 
A rock rises precipitously for over two hundred feet 
from the river, which the early Eoman colonists 
called the Mons Brisiacus, and upon and around it is 
the picturesque old town, with the prominent Minster 
of St. Stephen crowning the highest portion. In the 
olden time this was an important fortress and Ger- 
man outpost, the river having then flowed around 
the town and added to its defensive strength. It had 
many masters in the middle ages, finally going to 
Austria, and in 1740, the Rhine, waywardly changing 



192 THE RHINE. 

its course, damaged the fortifications, which the 
French completely destroyed in 1793. A bridge of 
boats crosses the Ehine in front of the town, and there 
is also a handsome railway bridge here for the line 
connecting Colmar with Freiburg. 

FREIBURG. 

Eastward from the Ehine spreads the broad plain of 
Baden, the Breisgau, with the river Dreisam flowing 
northward over it to seek the Ehine. Between the 
two rivers rises the basaltic and vine-clad hill-district 
of the Kaiserstuhl with some forty peaks, the highest 
being the Todtenkopf elevated over eighteen hundred 
feet. Here are the ruins of Limburg, where Eudolph 
of Hapsburg was born, in 1218. In the same year 
the death of Count Berthold V. of Zahringen ended 
that powerful race, whose seat, the ruined castle of 
Zahringen, now displays its solitary watch-tower near 
the outskirts of the ancient city of Freiburg, on the 
Dreisam, forty miles north of Basle and about eleven 
miles eastward from the Ehine. 

Freiburg occupies a charming situation. It is 
built in the lovely valley of the Dreisam, surrounded 
by picturesque hills, having on the one hand the 
fertile slopes of the Kaiserstuhl, and on the other the 
dark mountains of the Black Forest, for which, being 
on the highway leading from the Ehine eastward 
through the Forest to the headwaters of the Danube, 
it is the chief market-town. The Dukes of Zahringen 



FREIBURG. 193 

developed its early prosperity, Berthold II. having 
founded it in the eleventh century. It was the capi- 
tal of the Breisgau, a possession of the House of Ilaps- 
burg which held it four hundred years, and then 
it became, during most of the time, an Austrian ap- 
panage, though often captured by the French. Finally 
in the early nineteenth century, the Breisgau was an- 
nexed to Baden, thus going back to the descendants 
of the Zahringen house, the original lords. Freiburg 
is one of the most pleasant cities of the Ehine valle}^ 
surrounded by attractive suburbs, promenades and 
villas, while streams of the purest water from the 
swift-flowing Dreisam run through the streets. In 
recent years it has developed a good deal of profitable 
manufacturing. Its great memory is of the invention 
of gunpowder, claimed to have been here made by the 
Franciscan monk, Bertholdus Schwartz, about 1320, 
and his statue stands in the centre of the principal 
square, fronting on which are the Rathhaus, the 
quaint Old University, and the Church of St. Mar- 
tin. The fact of the invention is disputed, however, 
as similar explosive mixtures were known much earlier 
elsewhere, but this does not in the least dim the en- 
thusiasm of the Freiburg townsfolk. The memory of 
the Zahringen house is also plentifully marked by 
fountains, statues and columns, representing Ber- 
thold, Conrad and other princes. 

The most famous structure of Freiburg is the Ca- 
thedral, known as the Minster, always admired as 
one of the finest Gothic structures in Germany. It is 
13 



194 THE RHINE. 

of dark red sandstone, was founded by Conrad of Zah- 
ringen in the twelfth century, and was more than 
three centuries buildinge Its most magnificent fea- 
ture is the tower, rising three hundred and eighty 
feet, having a massive square basement, a tall octag- 
onal bell-tower, and a surmounting pyramid of per- 
forated masonry. Four knightly figures of members 
of the Zahringen family crown the buttresses, while 
on the northern buttress there are carved standard 
measures for bread, etc., which were the official records 
and have their dates, the earliest being in 1270. The 
portico is richly adorned with allegorical sculptures. 
The interior is nearly three hundred and sixty feet 
long, the choir terminating in an encircling wreath 
of chapels. There are fine frescoes and much stained 
glass of the fourteenth century, with many memorials 
and tombs of the scions of the great houses that have 
ruled the Breisgau, and of notable men of the city. 
Near the Minster are the ancient Kaufhaus, or Mer- 
chants^ Hall, dating from 1532, and also the Korn- 
halle. 

The noted University of Freiburg was founded in 
1456, and now has about seventeen hundred students. 
The quaint old University adjoins the Kathhaus on the 
principal square, and close by are the N'ew Univer- 
sity and the Library, while in the northern and newer 
portions of the city, are the various modern buildings 
occupied by the Scientific and Medical Faculties. The 
chief street, the Kaiser Strasse, leads out there from 
the Minster, and on the way is the elaborate War 



FREIBURG TO STRASSBURG. 195 

Monument erected in 1876 to the German Fourteenth 
Army Corps and General Von Werder who com- 
manded it, a large granite pedestal surmounted by a 
bronze statue of Victory and surrounded by figures of 
soldiers. It fronts the Infantry barracks built by 
Austria in the eighteenth century. The surface to the 
southeastward of Freiburg rises into the high eleva- 
tion of the Schlossberg, its green and pleasant heights 
now largely devoted to pleasure grounds, having been 
formerly defended by two castles which the French 
destroyed in 1744, the ruins being availed of to 
enhance the picturesqueness of the promenades from 
which there are superb views over the city and the 
Minster. To the southward the slope runs sharply 
off to the valley of the Dreisam. All about rise 
the peaks of the Black Forest, making a dark but 
pleasant horizon for the eastward view, while far over 
to the westward is the distant outline of the Vosges. 

FREIBURG TO STRASSBURG. 

All along the Rhine from Lake Constance westward 
to Basle and northward beyond Baden-Baden, its east- 
ern border is the famous Black Forest, the charming 
Schwarzwald of German song and story. This moun- 
tain range extends for nearly one hundred miles, its 
western and southern slopes and spurs declining some- 
what precipitously toward the plain adjoining the 
Rhine, while to the eastward the descent is more 
gradual. The western portions present charming 



196 THE RHINE. 

landscapes, the lower parts abounding in fragrant 
pine forests, while the upper surfaces are largely 
grass-grown pastures. It has no very high elevations, 
the Feldberg, southeast of Freiburg, the highest, being 
about forty-nine hundred feet, and having a hotel and 
tower on the summit. The fertile and well-cultivated 
valleys along the numerous streams are filled with an 
ample population of pastoral people who make toys, 
wooden ware, brushes and clocks, while the chief 
product is timber, floated out of the streams to the 
Ehine, to make up the great rafts going down the 
historic river. This attractive region is one of the 
most popular summer resorts in Germany. Its many 
watercourses flowing eastward are the headwaters of 
the Danube, while the Neckar flows northeast and 
then northward out of the northern portions of the 
forest. 

Across the Ehine, its western shores for many miles 
are the Province of Alsace, of which an ancient poem 
says, it has ''three towns in one valley, three castles 
on one hill, and three churches in one church-yard." 
A short distance northwest of Colmar, the little river 
Weiss flows from a romantic valley, seeking the Ehine. 
In this vale, in close proximity are the "three towns." 
They are Ammerschweier, Kienzheim, and Kaysers- 
berg, stretched along the valley within a distance of 
two miles. They have quaint old houses, and chival- 
rous memories, with ruined castles and strongholds 
of the early times, the chief being the fortress of the 
Kaiserberg, built in the thirteenth century to com- 



Cottage in the Black Forest. 



FREIBURG TO STRAS8BURG. 197 

mand the valley outlet where it contracts to narrow 
proportions, and long the residence of the Imperial 
Landvogt of Alsace. Xot far away is the "Red Field'^ 
known also as the Lugenfeld, or "field of lies/^ where 
the degenerate sons of Louis the Pious first seduced 
the army awa}" from its allegiance to their father in 
833, and then took him prisoner. A short distance 
northward, and also at the outlet of one of the pretty 
valleys in the spurs of the Yosges, is Eappoltsweiler, 
now devoted chiefly to cotton manufacturing, with re- 
mains of its ancient defensive walls. Here upon the 
high rocks above the town, are the "three castles 
upon one hill,^' being the three castles of the Counts 
of Rappolstein. These are now in partial ruin, and 
are the Girsberg built in the thirteenth century, St. 
Ulriehs-Burg, completed in the fifteenth century, and 
Hohen-Rappolstein, the highest of all, elevated over 
two thousand feet, and dating from the fourteenth 
century, its lofty tower giving an admirable view. 
These castles, like the Kaiserberg, were all greatly 
damaged in the Thirty Years' War. The Count of 
Rappolstein was a mediaeval magnate of the Upper 
Rhine valley, who was known as the king of all the 
minstrels and musicians of the district, they paying 
him an annual tax for which he in turn gave them his 
protection. Their fete day, still celebrated here, was 
September 8th, and they then all gathered at Rap- 
poltsweiler from their wanderings over Europe, set- 
tled their disputes and had a grand festival. The last 
Count died in 1673, and then his authoritv and the 



198 THE RHINE. 

title of "King of the Pipers" went to the Counts of 
Birkenfeld;, who retained it until the French Eevolu- 
tion. Altweier, amid the Vosges spurs, six miles 
away, is the highest village in Alsace, elevated over 
twenty-six hundred feet. 

Northward, the route is now over the plains of 
Alsace adjoining the Ehine, and through picturesque 
villages, with quaint old houses, and many remains of 
mediaeval fortifications still preserved, for all of these 
villages in those quarrelsome times were fortresses, 
and have resisted attacks in many wars. To the 
westward the Vosges foot-hills rise, with numerous 
ravines, out of which flow streams seeking the Ehine, 
and having perched on the rocks above them the 
ruins of ancient castles. The long mountain range 
of the Odilienberg here rises, with an eminence in the 
centre, the Mennelstein, elevated nearly twenty-seven 
hundred feet, and welling up from a grotto on its 
flanks is the sacred Odilienbrunnen, its miraculous 
waters being sought by thousands of pilgrims as a 
cure for diseases of the eyes. Above it is a convent, 
having a far view to the eastward over the valley of 
the Ehine. This was originally the nunnery founded 
in the seventh century by Sainte Odile, the patron 
saint of Alsace, whose name has been given the 
mountain. Her tomb is in the church, which is a 
great pilgrim resort, and has been visited by princes 
and popes seeking relief for their eyes from the blessed 
waters of the brook. This lady was the daughter of 
Eticho, duke of Alsace, and was born blind, but gain- 



THE CITY OF STBASSBURG. 199 

ing her sight on being baptized in this brook, she 
spent her life here in devotion to religion and charity. 
This noted mountain has been fortified with castles 
from the most remote period. The Eomans built de- 
fenses against the invading Allemanni from across the 
Ehine, in the third century, and there still remain 
their road leading up to the summit, and a well-pre- 
served wall encompassing the entire hill. From the 
eminence of the Mennelstein, the superb view em- 
braces almost the whole of Alsace, and much of the 
Black Forest range, with the Alps far to the south- 
eastward. 

THE CITY OF STRASSBURG. 

Northward over the plain our route runs, with the 
Odilienberg, and its white convent long a conspicuous 
object. The hill-slopes are dotted with vineyards, 
and in the fertile valley much tobacco is raised. Then 
the outlying forts of the Strassburg defense system 
are passed, their names recalling the Franco-German 
war which resulted in the surrender of the city. Fort 
von der Tann, Fort Werder, Fort Crown Prince of 
Saxony, Fort Prince Bismarck and others of the de- 
tached outworks come in review on the heights, the 
tall cathedral tower is seen from afar, while nearer 
the city is Konigshofen, where the capitulation was 
signed in September, 1870, in a railway car. The in- 
terior fortifications are passed, and the train halts in 
the handsome new railwav station on the western side 



200 THE RHINE. 

of the city, having a charming semicircular Place in 
front. Strassburg is a completely fortified and 
strongly garrisoned city of nearly one hundred and 
fifty thousand population, and is the capital of Al- 
sace and Lorraine. The river 111 flows out of the Vos- 
ges to the Ehine, and the city is about two miles west 
of the greater river, having the 111 passing through it 
by several, arms that are converted into canals. It has 
long had lucrative commerce, and recently developed 
considerable manufacturing. The ancient road from 
Gaul into southern Germany here crossed the road 
along the Ehine valley, and thus the original settle- 
ment began at the cross-roads. It was at first a Celtic 
colony, and when the Eomans came and made their 
usual fortified camp, they called it Argentoratum. 
During four centuries it was a headquarters for their 
legions controlling the Ehine, and here the Emperor 
Julian defeated the Allemanni in 357. But the Alle- 
manni ultimately conquered and brought in the Teu- 
tonic influence, while in the sixth century a bishopric 
was established, and the name appeared as Stratisbur- 
gum, from which the present title is derived. It 
grew in commerce and as a wine producer, the usual 
conflicts with the bishops ensued, and in the thir- 
teenth century the citizens conquered their indepen- 
dence. In the next century the encroachments of the 
French were successfully resisted; the Eeformation 
controlled Strassburg for a century and a-half : and 
in 1681, Louis XIV., who had previously conquered 
Alsace, seized Strassburg. France then held it nearly 



THE CITY OF STRASSBURG. 201 

two centuries until the Germans regained possession 
in 1870, and they have now newly fortified it against 
France, by a most comprehensive system of detached 
forts. It has always been regarded as a post of the 
utmost military importance, the Emperor Maximilian 
in his day, describing it as the bulwark of the Holy 
Roman Empire and commending the people for their 
rugged old German honesty and bravery. In the mid- 
dle ages the Strassburg artillery was famous in many 
battles. France strongly fortified it to defend the 
passage of the Rhine, and made it a leading arsenal. 
The siege by the Germans began in August, 1870, the 
bombardment, mainly from Kehl across the Rhine, 
opening on the^ 18th, and after a stubborn resistance, 
during which much damage was done, it surrendered 
on September 27th. Vauban's celebrated pentagonal 
citadel, constructed for Louis XIV., was reduced to 
a heap of ruins, and the northern and western gates 
and their castellated defences were destroyed, with 
much of the city. Kow, however, all traces of the ruin 
have been removed. The new fortifications on the 
modern system, consist of an enciente or inner ram- 
part enclosing more than twice the surface of the old 
city, and an outer girdle of fourteen strong forts, some 
of them five miles beyond the rampart. 

Strassburg is the chief city of the Upper Rhine val- 
ley. It is ninety miles north of Basle, and about two 
hundred and fifty miles almost directly east from 
Paris. To the visitor there is an unfailing attraction 
in the numerous storks who have the freedom of the 



202 THE RHINE. 

city; while the Alsace women, with the broad black 
bows tied on the backs of their head dresses, give a 
picturesque look to the promenades, the street-cleans- 
ing also being done by detachments of muscular 
women who wield their birch-brooms with vigor. 
Much of the fame of the city comes from its large 
trade in the famous pates de fois gras, the "fat liver 
pies" which are such an extensive product of Alsace, 
and are largely exported from this centre. This costly 
pate is produced through the maltreatment of the un- 
fortunate goose, who is given the liver complaint 
in order to secure its phenomenal enlargement. The 
goose is confined in a narrow cage, stuffed with corn 
and water, and after several weeks of such treatment, 
becoming so fat as to be in danger of suffocation, the 
goose is killed. Its weight is then about sixteen 
pounds of which the liver weighs thirty-two ounces. 
Six of these livers are used to make a pie, the prepar- 
ation being most elaborate. We are told the dish was 
an invention of the Apician epicures who introduced 
it into ancient Eome, but when it was later developed 
at Strassburg, a larding of the finest Perigord truffles 
was added, with a libation of the best Madeira wine 
after the baking, and then the pie is described as "a 
dainty dish fit to set before a whole congress of kings 
and emperors." 

The great Strassburg attraction is the Cathedral, 
built of the dark red sandstone of the Vosges usual 
along the Ehine, and standing up like a giant, seen 
with its surmounting spire, from afar on all the ap- 



THE CITY OF 8TRASSBURG. 203 

proaches to the city. The western fagade is a wonder- 
ful piece of architecture, covered with statues wher- 
ever they can be put to add to the adornment, and its 
effect is most brilliant under the afternoon sunlight. 
This Minster, dedicated to the Holy Virgin Mary, was 
founded in the sixth centur}^, the earliest building of 
architectural importance being begun in the eleventh 
century by the then Bishop Wernher of Hapsburg. 
There were various fires destroying it, and in 1176, the 
present church was begun on the old foundations, as 
a Eomanesque structure, the style changing to Gothic 
as building progressed. There was another serious 
fire, but the construction continued, and the towers 
were mainly built in the fifteenth century. Still an- 
other fire did great damage in 1759, and there was 
destruction during the French Eevolution, and also 
during the German bombardment in 1870, though the 
repairs have been thorough. There still are, however, 
evidences of where the German shells went into the 
sacred edifice. The final completion came in 1879, 
when a Romanesque dome was built over the transept 
crossing, and the roof covered with copper. The beau- 
tiful fagade constructed by the noted Erwin of Stein- 
bach in the thirteenth century is a memorial of the 
independence then achieved by the people of Strass- 
burg, the citizens providing the funds. It has a ma*^- 
nificent rose window, forty-two feet in diameter, hav- 
ing over it the statues of the Virgin and Apostles, 
with the Saviour above them. There are also large 
equestrian statues of Clovis who founded the original 



204 THE RHINE. 

church on the site, Dagobert who founded the bishop- 
ric, Kudolph of Hapsburg who gave the city many 
privileges, and Louis XIV. The latter statue is mod- 
ern, the others were works of the thirteenth century. 
There are also statues on the fagade of twenty other 
kings and emperors. The portals have admirable 
sculptures, and there are many statues and sculptures 
on the sides of the building. 

The great tower rises from the western facade to 
a height of four hundred and sixty-five feet. There 
is a spacious platform at about one-half the height, 
from which is an excellent view of the surrounding 
country, and the enclosing mountain ranges. Turrets 
rise at the corners, and the spire mounts high above, 
with an open lantern immediately below the summit, 
and a massive surmounting cross. This cross was 
struck and bent by a shell during the German bom- 
bardment, but is now restored. There are many 
names of visitors cut on the tower, and the platform 
of the parapet, among them being Voltaire, Goethe 
and Harder. The interior of the Minster is about 
three hundred and sixty feet long and one hundred 
and thirty-five feet wide, the height being nearly one 
hundred feet. There are admirable stained glass 
windows of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 
through which a subdued light enters. There are also 
some fine modern stained glass and frescoes. The 
elaborate stone pulpit in the nave was sculptured in 
the fifteenth century by John Geiler of Kaysersberg, 
who was a famous preacher of that time. The great 



THE CITY OF STRA8SBURG. 205 

attraction of the Minster is the astronomical clock 
standing in the south transept, which was built by 
a noted clock-maker of Strassburg, M. Schwilgue, in 
1842. It replaces a succession of similar clocks which 
were in the same place, the earliest dating from 1352. 
Some parts of the older clocks are retained in the 
present one. It attracts a large audience daily at 
noon to see it go through the motions. The clock 
does all kinds of things and when through, a cock, 
perched on the highest pinnacle of the side turret, 
vigorously flaps his wings and stretching his neck, 
lustily crows. This cock gives a most natural imita- 
tion of chanticleer's clarion call which resounds 
through all parts of the cathedral. The clock stands 
on the floor and is about forty feet high, while in a 
little gallery alongside sits an image of the first ar- 
chitect, contentedly gazing over the nave in admira- 
tion of his handiwork. The Bishop's Palace, which is 
near the Minster, is now the Public Museum. Not 
far away is the house where Goethe lived in 1770, 
when a student at the University. His memory is re- 
called by a portrait-bust on the building. General 
Kleber, who was a native of Strassburg, and killed at 
Cairo in 1800, has his bronze statue and monument 
in a square which has been named for him. There is 
also a square named for Gutenberg, the inventor 
of printing, and having his statue, a modern work. 
The earliest Strassburg printer, Johann Mentel, was 
his pupil. 

Among the noted churches is the old Protestant 



206 THE RHINE. 

Church of St. Thomas, dating from the fourteenth 
century, which is famous as it contains in the choir 
one of the finest monuments in the world. This is 
the tomb erected b}- Louis XY. of France for his great 
general, Count Maurice of Saxony, Marshal Saxe, who 
died in 1750, after a career of the most glorious vic- 
tories. The work was by Pigalle, who bestowed upon 
it twenty years' labor. It represents the Marshal, 
baton in hand, walking boldly down the steps leading 
to his grave, after having raised on high the French 
standards and broken the flags and vanquished the 
Austrian eagle, the Dutch lion, and the English leop- 
ard, the three powers defeated in his conquest of 
Flanders in the early eighteenth century. Death has 
opened the coffin to receive him, while the beautiful 
female figure of France, with one hand tries to deter 
him and with the other endeavors to push back 
Death. On the other side Hercules leans on his club 
in mournful attitude. The Marshal's remains are in- 
terred beneath. There are other tombs of famous 
men in the church, among them Oberlin, and here are 
also preserved in glass cases, the mummies of the 
Duke of N'assau and his daughter. In the northern 
part of the city is the elaborate new Imperial Palace, 
built in 1885, for the seat of the German Provincial 
Government, the Hall of the Diet, and the Uni- 
versity Librar}', also new structures. The old Strass- 
burg library was destroyed in the bombardment, and 
contributions of books were sent from all parts of the 
world, so that the new building, which is an impressive 



Str.'^.ssburg—Tomb of Marshal Saxe 



BADEN-BADEN. 207 

Renaissance structure now has over eight hundred 
thousand volumes. The University Collegiate build- 
ings, mostly modern, are in the eastern part of the 
city. They are adorned by statues of many men of 
learning, and have in the grounds a colossal bust of 
Goethe. To the eastward is the harbor on the Little 
Rhine, which diverges from the main stream and has 
extensive magazines and quays. 

BADEIS^-BADEN. 

Eastward over the flat land and water-courses, and 
out among the forts and batteries our route goes from 
Strassburg across the Rhine to Kehl, and thence up 
the broad valley of the Kinzig which comes from the 
Black Forest to here flow into the great river. Then 
we turn northward over the plain to Baden-Baden, 
passing on the way the village of Achern, near which, 
in 1675, the famous Marshal Turenne was killed in 
the battle of Sasbach. The scene is essentially Ger- 
man along this route which skirts the foot-hills of 
the Black Forest. The wide plain of Baden adjoin- 
ing the Rhine and extending eastward to these hills, 
is a perfect garden, much of it irrigated, and produc- 
ing luxuriant crops. It is like a western American 
prairie, but with many statues and crosses set up in 
the fields and along the roads, and myriads of strange 
looking, yet picturesque old houses with most ponder- 
ous roofs. The one or two-storied houses have four 
and five-storied roofs, each roof story having its row 



208 THE RHINE. 

of dormer windows. Some houses in the narrow vil- 
lage streets project over the pavements, so that the 
eaves of opposite buildings almost touch. Other 
houses have elaborate structures on the roofs looking 
like hurricane decks and bay windows or oriels, giv- 
ing them the oddest kind of appearance. There are 
rich fields and pastures, numerous vineyards, and thus 
the route leads to the little river Oos coming out of 
the Black Forest, and up among its hills to the re- 
nowned mineral springs of Baden-Baden. 

This is one of the most popular German watering 
places, its situation being beautiful, with the great 
hills of the Black Forest rising almost all around the 
lovely valley in which it is located. The banks of the 
little river that wanders through the town have been 
made a paradise of beauty, the Great Trinkhalle, As- 
sembly Hall, and bathing establishments being de- 
veloped in the highest style of art and decoration, 
and surrounded by splendid flower gardens and prom- 
enades. The springs were known to the Eomans, and 
for centuries it was the seat of the Margraves of Ba- 
den, who built the castles on the hills overlooking the 
valley, for their strongholds. It was seriously dam- 
aged in the many wars of the middle ages, and almost 
ruined in the barbarous destruction which Louis 
XIV.'s French generals wrought on almost all the 
towns and castles along the Ehine. Its reputation as 
a sanitarium did not develop to any extent until after 
the French Eevolution, and the first Assembly Hall 
was built in 1808, and the gaming tables which gave 



BADEN-BADEN. 209 

it such notoriety and popularit}' were then estab- 
hshed. The great hill of the Schlossberg rises above 
the narrow valley and at its base flow out the seven 
Hot Springs that have been united into two channels, 
leading to the Trinkhalle and the baths, then flowing 
away to swell the little Oos. The discharge is copious, 
exceeding one hundred and ten thousand gallons 
daily, and the solid ingredients, chiefly chloride of 
sodium, are about three per cent. The waters taste 
like a very thin and hot decoction of weak pea-soup, 
and the Baden fashion is to get up early in the morn- 
ing and go to the magnificent Trinkhalle, where they 
are ladled out to the drinkers. The great Assembly 
Hall, however, has lost its old-time charm, for the 
crowds are not now attracted there as they were in 
the days of the gaming tables. The roulette-table 
and the croupier, with his rake, have disappeared, for 
when the Germans consolidated their Empire in 1871 
and got full control of the Duchy of Baden, which 
formerly had been chiefly supported by the French, 
they abolished the gaming tables. It was from the 
proflts of these tables during the sixty-odd years of 
their existence, that the magnificence of Baden-Baden 
was developed at a cost of millions, and yet this was 
only a portion of the gains. The banker paid half the 
winnings to the government as a tax, and out of 
the other half constructed the glories of the town 
and also had a handsome personal profit. The place 
is still maintained, however, in all its former splendor 
though by different methods, one being a small tax 
14 



210 THE RHINE. 

assessed on the visitors. The population of about fif- 
teen thousand is often expanded to seventy thousand 
in the height of the season. 

The porphyry and red sandstone of the Ehine re- 
gion appear in vast masses in the huge hills surround- 
ing the town, and make the chief building material. 
On the great promontory to the northward, the Bat- 
tert, the Eomans built in the third century a castel- 
lated fortification, and here at over fifteen hundred 
feet elevation, the Margraves had their Old Schloss 
or Castle of Hohenbaden, which they occupied in the 
eleventh century. It was an extensive structure and 
the red sandstone ruins are much admired, for the 
French blew it up more than two centuries ago. The 
flag of Germany floats from the top of the ancient and 
battered tower, and there is a magnificent view over 
the town and its pretty gardens and valley, with the 
peaks of the Black Forest towering high on the left 
hand, and the broad plain through which the Ehine 
flows spreading on the right. This valley can be 
traced all the way from Speyer off to the northwest, 
southward beyond Strassburg, which is seventeen 
miles away. Now, this old ruined Schloss with its 
many centuries of heroic and warlike recollections, 
and its fine ivy clinging to the sandstone, is devoted 
mainly to the peaceful occupation of selling Baden 
beer to the thirsty who climb up to it. When the 
Margraves got tired of mounting to this elevated 
castle, they decided to have a new one within the 
town, so that the Neue Schloss was begun in the fif- 



BADEN-BADEN. 211 

teenth century and subsequently enlarged, being now 
the summer home of the Grand Duke. The French 
also seriously damaged this building, but it has been 
restored, and contains many attractive apartments, 
and has elaborate gardens. Below it and adjacent to 
the springs are the spacious bathing establishments, 
the Friedrichsbad and adjoining it, the Kaiserin- 
Augusta Bad, named for the Grand Duke and Duch- 
ess. The pleasure grounds extend a long distance 
along the Oos in front, and the river bed is paved, with 
enclosing walls, and has a flue to convey the stream, 
which for a long way up into the heart of the forest is 
adjoined by parks and villas. The Assembly Hall or 
Conversationshaus has most gorgeous saloons, and 
here one of the best bands in Europe plays during the 
season. The Trinkhalle, with its imposing colonnade, 
adjoins. The frescoes depict legends of the Black 
Forest, and a las relief above displays the nymph of 
the springs administering relief to all sufferers. The 
ancient Ffarrkirche, first built in the seventh century, 
burnt in 1689, and subsequently rebuilt, contains the 
monuments and tombs of many Margraves of Baden. 
The surrounding hills give Baden-Baden splendid 
suburbs, extensively availed of for villas. The popu- 
lar drive and promenade is up the Oos valley. Here is 
the ancient nunnery of Lichtenthal, founded in the 
thirteenth century by Irmangard, widow of Hermann 
IV. of Baden. In the church is her tomb, and the 
convent which has escaped all the devastations of the 
many wars is still occupied by Cistercian nuns. Far- 



212 THE RHINE. 

ther up, a tributary stream, the Gerolsau, descends a 
pretty cataract. Beyond rises the dark Badener 
Hohe, over thirty-three hundred feet, surmounted by 
a tower giving an excellent view over the peaks of the 
Black Forest. At Ebersteinberg, northeast of the Old 
Schloss is another ancient castle on Eoman founda- 
tions, dating from the tenth century, which was the 
seat of the old Counts of Eberstein, one of whom was 
the subject of Uhland's ballad of the Count and the 
Emperor's daughter. To the northward is one of the 
palaces of the Grand Duke, known as the Favorite, 
built in the early eighteenth century by the Margra- 
vine Sibylla Augusta, who retired here after the death 
of her husband. The ride to it from Baden-Baden is 
about five miles, and this little palace, kept just as 
she left it, has a suite of rooms, highly decorated with 
mirrors, embroideries, portraits and other adorn- 
ments. The Mirror Chamber, twenty feet square, is 
entirely surrounded and ceiled with little mirrors: 
the Florentine Chamber contains over four hundred 
portraits of the famous men of her time; another 
room has portraits of Sibylla and her family in all 
sorts of dresses, there being seventy-two portraits of 
each. The building is full of this kind of gaudy dis- 
play, for the lady was one of the most noted voluptu- 
aries of her time, and it is in sharp contrast with the 
little chapel of the Hermitage near by, where she 
always secluded herself during Lent and then by peni- 
tential fasting, prayer and scourging, made up for the 
sins of the rest of the year. Living thus in seclusion 



Baden B ADEN— Con VERSATioNSHAUS. 



THE MURG AND THE KINZIG. 213 

and repentance, she prepared her own meals and ate 
them at a plain table, on the opposite side of which sat 
waxen images of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and when 
the period of penance was ended, she emerged again to 
become as gay and frivolous as ever. 

THE MURG AND THE KINZIG. 

East and north of Baden flows the little river Murg 
through one of the most beautiful valleys of the Black 
Forest, coming out to the Ehine to the northward of 
the famous watering place. The slopes bordering this 
attractive gorge are largely controlled by the great 
timber-cutting combinations of the Black Forest, who 
float their logs to the Ehine to be formed into rafts. 
High above the stream, rises the ISTeu Eberstein castle, 
built in 1798, and having a grand view over the val- 
ley. The ravine leads, with constantly beautiful views 
unfolding, for a long distance up toward the southeast 
into Wurtemberg. Another valley, that of the Kin- 
zig, south of Baden, extending southeast from the 
Rhine, entirely bisects the Black Forest, and is trav- 
ersed by a railway, leading from Offenburg near 
Strassburg over to the shores of Lake Constance, 
which exhibits some of the finest scenery of the For- 
est, and the most striking feats of engineering to 
overcome the bends and grades. It passes numerous 
ancient strongholds and towns, in a populous region 
which is the chief headquarters of the Schwarzwald 
clockmakers. The old Benedictine abbey of Gengen- 



214 THE RHINE. 

bach, founded in the eighth centui}^ upon its banks, 
is now a normal school. Farther up near Biberach, 
upon a high rock, are the extensive ruins at eighteen 
hundred feet elevation of the old castle of Hohen- 
Geroldseck, which the French destroyed in the late 
seventeenth century. Similar ruins then also wrought 
by the French are evident throughout the valley. 
Hornberg is one of the most picturesque spots in the 
gorge, and has many summer visitors, with also a 
French-ruined chateau. Then begins a magnificent 
ravine, and in it in the centre of the Black Forest is 
Triberg, the headquarters of the clockmakers. Here 
is the finest cataract of the district, the Fall of the 
Gutach, five hundred feet high and divided into seven 
separate leaps by enormous blocks of granite. It is 
picturesquely framed about by the dark pines of the 
forest, and is a favorite resort for artists. 

The railway executes some astonishing manoeuvres 
in getting up this valley, doubling upon itself, going 
through tunnels and over viaducts ; and it passes more 
settlements of the clockmakers in St. Georgen, Vil- 
lingen and other very ancient towns, displaying relics 
of the mediaeval centuries. The summit of the di- 
vide is crossed and at twenty-two hundred feet eleva- 
tion, is Donaueschingen, the seat of the Princes of 
Fiirstenberg, with their palace and a spacious park. 
From the choir of the ancient church, the visitor de- 
scends a short distance to a spring of the clearest 
water, which comes out into a circular stone basin, and 
then is led underground to the neighboring little 



THE MURG AND THE KINZIG. 215 

Brigach brook about a hundred feet away. This 
spring is the source of the great Danube river, which 
flows nearly eighteen hundred miles from it eastward 
to the sea. The Princes have a large brewery which 
brings them much revenue, and there is also an exten- 
sive library. After following down the Danube, the 
railway pierces the southern watershed toward the 
Ehine by a long tunnel and finally reaches the Boden- 
see at Constance. The attractive little watering place 
of Wolfach is on this route at the confluence of the 
Kinzig with the Wolfbach, making two splendid val- 
leys coming together amid abrupt pine-clad moun- 
tains. This is a quaint town, with an ancient Her- 
renhaus at the verge, through the arched gateway of 
which the visitor enters the place. The two main 
streets are adorned with bright oleanders and hy- 
drangeas and have old-time gabled houses bordering 
them, and splashing fountains. Here come the peas- 
ants in their gay costumes at every feast and merry- 
making, exhibiting the picturesque variety of dress 
for which the Black Forest is famous. The young 
girls have brilliant kerchiefs and streamers of red 
silks with stunning headgear of tinsel tassels. The 
older women wear indescribable mixtures of colors, 
prominent being red-checked skirts and green aprons, 
a spotted red bodice and white fichu, a gorgeously 
tinted kerchief around the neck and a head-dress 
made up of golden tinsel behind and black gauze in 
front. The men wear red-lined black jackets numer- 
ously adorned with bright brass buttons, knee 



216 THE RHINE. 

breeches and blue woollen stockings. A sprig of or- 
ange blossom adds to the attractiveness. These light- 
hearted people, wearied perhaps in centuries of clock- 
making, still manage to have a good time in the heart 
of the great Black Forest. 

RASTATT, CARLSRUHE AXD WORTH. 

Northward from Baden-Baden about seven miles 
and nearer the Ehine is the great German Fortress of 
Eastatt. When the Margraves of Baden deserted the 
ancient Schloss at Baden-Baden, they made Eastatt 
their capital, residing here until the family became 
extinct in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
The French demolished it and burnt the palace in 
1689, but it was subsequently rebuilt b}^ the Margrave 
Lewis, and during the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies the Germans made Eastatt one of their strong- 
est outpost fortresses defending the Ehine frontier. 
The railway route up the Ehine is laid directly 
through its enormous and costly defensive works. 
The old palace is now the military headquarters. In 
one of its apartments was signed, in 1714, the peace 
between France and Austria terminating t-he Spanish 
War of Succession which had devastated so much of 
western Europe. 

The present capital of Baden, Carlsruhe, is fifteen 
miles northeast of Eastatt on the western edge of the 
Haardt Forest and about six miles from the Ehine. 
Its importance began in the early eighteenth century 
when the Margrave Charles William, after the French 



RASTATT, CARLSRUHE AND WORTH. 217 

devastation of Baden-Baden, transferred his residence 
here, and since the Franco-German war of 1870, it has 
greatly developed its industries so that the popula- 
tion approximates one hundred thousand. The old 
town had its streets radiating like a fan from the 
palace, but now there are many new and fine streets 
opened over an extensive surface on all sides of the 
spreading fan, excepting through the forest to the east- 
ward where there are tasteful grounds. The palace is 
semicircular and surmounted by a far-viewing tower. 
There are sumptuous rooms and an extensive Museum, 
with a large Botanic Garden, and beyond it is the spa- 
cious modern Hall of Art, having an admirable collec- 
tion of paintings and other art objects. There are 
also buildings for the School of Art, and the 
elaborate Army Headquarters of the XlVth German 
Corps. Among the newer buildings is the palace 
built to house the Grand Ducal Collections, which 
make an elaborate display. The Carlsruhe Polytech- 
nic School, founded in 1825, the oldest institution of 
that kind in Germany, also has attractive modern 
buildings, the original structure having been erected 
in 1836 by Hiibsch, the architect who achieved great 
fame in developing the architecture of the capital, 
and whose colossal bust stands at the entrance to the 
Botanic Garden. The city also is embellished with 
an impressive bronze equestrian statue of the Em- 
peror William I. 

Westward from Carlsruhe, a highway leads to the 
Rhine which is crossed bv a bridcre of boats, and not 



218 THE RHINE. 

far beyond the river is the village of Worth. Here was 
fought the great battle of August 6, 1870, when the 
Germans, having crossed the Ehine above Strassbnrg 
previously to its siege and isolated that city, defeated 
and drove back the French. The "MacMahon Tree'' 
is shown where the French Marshal stood during most 
of the contest. The little river Sauer here comes out 
of the hills past Worth seeking the Ehine. The Ger- 
mans took possession of the village early in the morn- 
ing and successfully resisted all attacks. They could 
not, however, drive the French from the heights they 
held above the river beyond the village, but early, 
in the afternoon turned their wing south of Worth 
and during the alarm attacked the French position 
from all sides, finally capturing it toward evening, a 
disorderly French retreat following. There are many 
monuments on the field, erected by both sides, the 
finest being a statue of the Emperor Frederick on a 
hill commanding a good view of the battlefield. To 
the westward, at Weissenburg, was fought the prelimi- 
nary battle two days before, when the German Crown 
Prince gained a victory over the French under Abel 
Douay who fell in the combat. Here is the splendid 
Gothic church of St. Peter and St. Paul, built in the 
thirteenth century, which is a survival of the ancient 
Abbey of Weissenburg, founded by Dagobert IT., in 
the seventh century. To the northward, on the Spey- 
erbach, is the chief town of this district of the Ba- 
varian Palatinate, Neustadt, now the centre of a pro- 
lific wine district, and having various paper mills. 



RASTATT, CARLSRUHE AND WORTH. 210 

The Counts Palatine founded it, and the Abbey 
Church which they built in the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries, contains the tombs of several of 
these potentates. The old church, too, is impartial, 
the choir being used for worship by the Eoman Cath- 
olics and the nave by the Protestants. The suburbs 
are very attractive, running up among the hills of the 
Haardt district, crowned by villas and ancient castles. 
A short distance north of Neustadt is the pretty 
valley of the Isenach, and where it emerges from the 
Haardt mountains to the plain, is Dlirkheim in a dis- 
trict of vineyards. To the westward, on a high hill 
enclosing the entrance to the gorge, are the pictur- 
esque ruins of the old Benedictine Abbey of Limburg, 
its basilica giving an example of the architecture of 
the eleventh century, and seen from afar. The pon- 
derous walls are well preserved and also the imposing 
tower. There are pleasant grounds, the government 
having it in charge. We are told that this was an an- 
cient chateau of the Salic Counts, of whom Conrad the 
Elder, was elected king of Germany in 1024. His eld- 
est son, Conrad, was killed while hunting, and this so 
affected the king that he converted the ancestral castle 
into a religious foundation dedicated to the welfare 
of his son's soul. The tragedy entirely changed the 
disposition of the king, and on July 12, 1030, at four 
o'clock in the morning. King Conrad and Queen 
Grisela laid the foundation stone of the basilica, and 
then proceeded to Speyer, where later in the day they 
placed the first stone of the great cathedral. It took 



220 THE RHINE. 

twelve years to complete the Limburg Abbey build- 
ings, and then the establishment was presented to the 
Benedictines who afterward acquired extensive pos- 
sessions. It had many vicissitudes; was destroyed in 
the subsequent wars, and again erected, but the 
Elector Frederick in the time of the Eeformation, 
finally suppressed the Abbey, and then the structures 
gradually decayed. About two miles farther within 
the Isenach gorge is the conspicuous red sandstone 
ruin of the castle of the Hartenburg. This was a 
stronghold of the Counts of Leiningen, dating from 
the twelfth century, but the French blew it up in 1794. 
There are attractive promenades around it, and also 
adjacent an ancient tournament field planted with 
lime trees. Upon the wooded hill of the Kastanien- 
berg to the northward, is the Heidenmauer, one of the 
ancient German ramparts which have so much his- 
toric interest. The entire summit is enclosed by a 
rude stone rampart, in some cases as much as a hun- 
dred feet wide, and from seven to thirteen feet high. 
This wall is over three miles in circumference, ex- 
tending around the hill, and was evidently a defensive 
work constructed by one of the early Teutonic tribes. 

SPEYER AND MANNHEIM. 

The Speyerbach flows eastward from the vineyards 
of Neustadt, over the broad plain of garden lands to 
the Rhine and near their confluence is the ancient city 
of Speyer, the capital of the Bavarian Palatinate. 



SPEYER AND MANNHEIM. 221 

Hither came the Eonians in their earliest occupation 
of the Ehine and made their camp and colony of Au- 
gusta Nemetum. In the general conversion to Christi- 
anity in the fourth century, a bishopric was establish- 
ed, and a church built. The German emperors liked 
the place and often lived here, and under the Salic po- 
tentates it greatly prospered. Conrad II. founded the 
cathedral for his burial place, and it was the tomb of 
the German emperors during five centuries. They 
built the cathedral, embellished the palace, and made 
Speyer a free city of the Empire, giving it great repu- 
tation. There were many imperial diets held at 
Speyer, the two most important being in 152G and 
1529. The former, in consonance with the spirit of 
the Eeformation had enacted various reforms in the 
church, while the Diet of 1529 convoked by the Em- 
peror Charles Y., and controlled by the Catholics, by 
a majority vote revoked the enactments of the pre- 
vious conclave. Then the minority, headed by the 
princes and prelates who had espoused the cause of the 
Eeformation, made their protest against the decree of 
the Diet, among them being the Elector John 
of Saxony, the Margrave George of Brandenburg and 
the Landgrave Philip of Hesse. From this action they 
came to be known as "the Protestants," and this name 
was soon taken by Luther's followers, and afterward 
was generally given to the Eeformed churches. 

The Speyer Cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin, is 
its great attraction. It was built by Conrad, his son 
Henry III. and grandson Henry lY., being practically 



222 THE RHINE, 

completed in the eleventh century. Several fires 
subsequently damaged it, and the French under Louis 
XIV/s orders, in 1689, almost entirely destroyed the 
town and the Cathedral. It was restored in the next 
century and again devastated by the French in 1794, 
being then converted into a military magazine, and 
was not again used as a church until 1832. It is an 
impressive Romanesque basilica, surmounted by two 
domes and four towers, two at each end. The struc- 
ture is about four hundred and forty feet long, the 
transepts extending one hundred and eighty feet and 
the nave being over one hundred feet high, a hand- 
some surmounting arcade running around the whole 
building, and the western towers rising two hundred 
and forty feet. The vestibule is modern, having three 
large portals and a fine rose window, and is known as 
the Kaiser-Halle. In it in gilded mosaic niches stand 
statues of the German emperors buried within. It is 
adorned by four large reliefs showing Conrad la^dng 
the foundation stone; Eudolph of Hapsburg and the 
priest with the elevated host; Eudolph receiving tid- 
ings of his election to the German throne ; and Ru- 
dolph at his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle, taking the 
cross from the altar in lieu of a sceptre. The dedica- 
tion of the church to the Virgin is represented over 
the inner portal. There are also representations of 
John the Baptist, Saints Bernard and Stephen, and 
of Schraudolph, the artist who decorated the church 
with many fine frescoes in the early nineteenth cen- 
tury. Between the nave and the principal choir is 



ISPEYER AND MANNHEIM. 223 

the King^s Choir, practically an extension of the nave, 
and here are large statues of Eudolph of Hapsburg, 
who died in 1291, and Adolph of Nassau, killed in 
1298, the great rivals, the former sitting and the latter 
kneeling. The approach from this to the principal 
choir has on either side reliefs, each containing por- 
traits of four emperors. The ancient tombstone of 
Eudolph is preserved in the crypt. Eight German 
emperors are buried in this Cathedral, and several of 
their Queens. In the Chapel of St. Afra, north of the 
King's Choir, the body of Henry IV. was kept five 
years unburied until the papal excommunication had 
been revoked. Near the northeastern corner of the 
church is the Domnapf, or "cathedral bowl,'' a large 
sandstone receptacle, which anciently marked the 
boundary line between the bishop's jurisdiction and 
that of the civic authorities. Whenever a new bishop 
came to Speyer, he had to promise to respect and 
maintain the liberties of the town, and then fill this 
bowl with wine in which the townspeople drank the 
good bishop's health. Some Eoman remnants remain 
in the old town wall, among them, south of the choir, 
the Heathen's Tower which is a relic of the eleventh 
century. The French, however, destroyed almost 
every building of antiquity in Speyer. 

Fifteen miles northward, along the level fertile plain, 
the railway train speeds to Mannheim at the conflu- 
ence of the Ehine and the Neckar. This is the most 
important commercial city of the Upper Ehine, and 
spreads broadly across the level land adjoining and 



224 THE RHINE. 

between the two rivers. It has an extensive harbor 
and spacious new docks, its trade being large and lu- 
crative, as the port for the rich and populous adjacent 
country. It is also, unlike most German cities, 
planned with straight streets crossing at right angles, 
and has attracted a population of one hundred and 
seventy thousand. The city is not very ancient, how- 
ever, for it began only as far back as the early seven- 
teenth century, when the Elector Palatine Frederick 
IV. built a castle at the junction of the rivers, which 
was soon surrounded by a settlement, both being de- 
stroyed by the French in 1689. It grew rapidly in 
the eighteenth century, Avhen, owing to religious quar- 
rels, the Elector Charles Philip changed his residence 
from Heidelberg to Mannheim in 1721. He built the 
sj)acious Grand Ducal Palace, w^hose extensive gar- 
dens front upon the Ehine. Within the court are 
modern fountains representing the legend of the 
Ehine and the Eheingold, and also a monument to the 
Emperor William I. Inside are exhibited elaborate 
collections of Antiquities and Natural History, a fine 
gallery of paintings, and there is also a library. In 
the Theatre of Mannheim were performed Schiller's 
first plays, the Robbers and others, under his own di- 
rection in 1782-8 1, and Schiller's monument stands in 
front, having adjacent the statue of the distinguished 
actor Iffland, who appeared in these plays, his career 
having begun in the Mannheim Theatre. Fine bridges 
span both the Ehine and the Neckar to the suburbs, 
the chief of them being Ludwigshafen across the 



RIVER NECKAR AND STUTTGART. 225 

Rhine, entirely a growth of the later nineteenth cen- 
tury, where there are fifty thousand people and a great 
development of manufactures and commerce. Schwet- 
zingen, on the Ehine plain a few miles southward 
from Mannheim, displays the great Schloss which was 
a rural residence of the Electors in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. There are over one hundred acres of gardens, 
laid out about 1750 by the Elector Karl Theodor in 
imitation of Versailles, with statues, temples, foun- 
tains, artificial ruins, fine lakes and avenues, typifying 
the taste of that period. 

THE RIVER NECKAR AND STUTTGART. 

The river Neckar flows across the Ehine plain 
among the gardens and vineyards, from the southeast 
to join the great river, and is one of the chief tribu- 
taries. It drains the greater portion of the Black 
Forest, and the eastern half of Wurtemberg. The 
Neckar flows northward through picturesque defiles 
among the woods and mountains, and then turns west- 
ward, breaking out of the hills at Heidelberg. Its 
course is over two hundred miles, one of the famous 
streams of the Fatherland. In a general way its gorge 
separates the Black Forest from the adjoining woods 
and mountains on its northern side, known as the 
Odenwald, rising to rather lower elevations, but pre- 
senting scenery fully as attractive. The Odenwald 
stretches for forty to fifty miles across country to the 
river Main, the next tributary of the Ehine to the 
northward. 
15 



226 THE RHINE. 

The chief city on the Neckar is Stuttgart, the capi- 
tal of Wurtemberg, beautifully situated in the eastern 
defiles of the Black Forest. This splendid city, while 
originating as early as the thirteenth century and 
always a favorite residence of the rulers of Wurtem- 
berg, has had its chief growth and architectural de- 
velopment during the nineteenth century. It was 
the stable stud, or Stuten Garten, of the early Counts, 
and thus came the name, and it now has a population 
exceeding one hundred and eighty thousand. The 
centre of the city may be regarded as the Schloss 
Platz, an expansive square, adorned by pleasure 
grounds and flower gardens, and surrounded by elabor- 
ate buildings. In the middle of the square rises to a 
height of over one hundred feet the Jubilee Column 
with its crowning bronze statue, erected in IS-il to 
the memory of King William I. of Germany. At the 
corners of the pedestal are emblematic figures, repre- 
senting Commerce, the Lelirstand, (teachers) Nalir- 
stand, (bread-winners) and Welirstand, (defenders of 
the country). There are also emblematic reliefs on 
the pedestal giving scenes in Wurtemberg history, and 
two adjacent fountains have genii at their base, typi- 
cal of the rivers of Wurtemberg. The eastern side of 
the square is occupied by the Palace, an enormous 
structure containing over two hundred and seventy 
rooms, some of them spacious and most elaborately 
adorned. It is not now occupied, and is used chiefly 
for exhibition purposes, there being displayed paint- 
ings, statuary, china and porcelain, antiquities, and a 



RIVER NECKAR AND STUTTGART. 227 

series of large frescoes depicting the history of Count 
Eberhart with the Beard, the famous Wurtemberg 
ruler who greatly developed the city and was created 
a Duke in the fifteenth century by the German Em- 
peror Maximilian. To the south of the square is the 
Old Palace, built in the sixteenth century, an irregular 
quadrangle surrounding an arcaded court and having 
round towers at three corners. The second floor of the 
easternmost tower is reached by a curious winding in- 
clined plane. The court contains the equestrian 
statue of Count Eberhart, and adjoining the old pal- 
ace are a recent monument of the Emperor William, 
and an elaborate statue of Schiller, who was born in 
1759 at Membach on the Neckar, this statue being 
erected in 1839 by subscriptions collected from all 
parts of Germany. Other buildings fronting on the 
square are the imposing Konigsbau on the western 
side, four hundred and forty feet long with an Ionic 
colonnade and projecting Corinthian porticos; the ad- 
joining palace of the Crown Prince; on the northern 
side the Konigen Olga Bau, built for the Duchess 
Vera in 1895, and the adjacent Court Theatre; and to 
the south, the Stiftskirche which, originally founded 
in the twelfth century, was rebuilt as a Gothic church 
in the fifteenth century, and has been used for the 
Eeformed service ever since 1534. Two imposing 
towers rise over it, and the choir is early Gothic, dat- 
ing from the fourteenth century. Ranged along the 
choir wall are stone figures of eleven ancient Counts 
of Wurtemberg. Not far away, to the southward, is 



228 THE RHINE. 

the Market Place which was the centre of old Stutt- 
gart, and is surrounded by survivals of old-time 
houses, while a new Town Hall has also been built 
there. 

Northward from the palaces is the spacious park of 
the city, laid out in the English style in the early 
nineteenth century — the Schloss Garten — extending 
for about two miles and embracing two hundred acres 
of pleasure grounds, with old trees, lakes, gay flower- 
beds, botanic collections, sculptures and other adorn- 
ments. From its northern extremity, a magnificent 
chestnut lined avenue leads northeastward through 
the suburb of Berg adjoining the ISTeckar, terminating 
at the royal chateau of the Eosenstein on a hill to the 
northward, which contains an elaborate collection of 
paintings and sculptures. On the eastern side of the 
Schloss Garten is the fine street, the Neckar Strasse. 
Fronting on it to the southeast of the buildings sur- 
rounding the Schloss Platz, is the Palace of King 
William IL, occupied by the royal family, having in 
front marble busts of Bismarck and Moltke. Various 
government buildings adjoin this palace, and in the 
Hall of State Archives is displayed an extensive Cabi- 
net of Natural History. Opposite is the Academy or 
Karls Schule, where Schiller received his medical edu- 
cation and is said to have composed his play of the 
Robbers in 1777, surreptitiously. To the northward is 
the spacious Eoyal Library, containing over five hun- 
dred thousand volumes, nearly four thousand manu- 
scripts and many specimens of early printing. There 



RIVER NECKAR AND STUTTGART. 229 

are said to be seventy-three hundred Bibles in this col- 
lection, representing a hundred different languages. 
The lower floors of the building contain Antiquities, 
and a display of Roman and Mediaeval stone monu- 
ments. Fronting on the Neckar Strasse adjoining the 
Botanic Garden in the Schloss Garten is the Mint, and 
toward the street its brilliant displays of flowers are 
adorned by an impressive monument to Karl and Olga 
of Wurtemberg. Opposite the Mint rise the elaborate 
buildings of the Museum of Art, containing an admir- 
able exhibition of painting, engravings, sculptures, 
casts and other art objects. Here is kept the famous 
sculptor, Dannecker^s, noted marble bust of Schiller, 
which has the hair mutilated by the sculptor in a fit 
of mental aberration. In the court is an equestrian 
statue of King William I. Adjoining, on higher 
ground is the Royal Art School, its fagade richly 
adorned with frescoes and statuary, while to the 
southeast the surface rises into the elevated Eugene 
Platte giving a fine view over the city, and adorned 
with a fountain, and a bronze bust of Duke Eugene 
of Wurtemberg. Stuttgart has its Polytechnic School 
in the northwestern section, erected for the advance- 
ment of modern German education, and also to the 
westward, an architectural school. To the southwest 
is the elaborate Liederhalle of the singers, the largest 
in Germany, and having spacious concert-rooms, and 
veranda-gardens. The city has many other attrac- 
tive public and private buildings and is one of the 
best exhibitions of modern architectural development 



230 THE RHINE. 

in southern Germany. Its newer residential sections 
have been very handsomely developed. The suburbs 
are charming and from the many near-by elevations 
there are magnificent views over the city and the val- 
ley of the Neckar. Among the finest of these is the 
landscape disclosed from the Belvedere Tower at an 
elevation of nearly fifteen hundred feet on the Hasen- 
berg, displaying almost the entire distant chain of the 
Suabian Alb. In the ornamental grounds adjacent is 
displayed a bust of the noted novelist and poet, Wil- 
liam Hauff, who was born in Stuttgart in 1802. The 
famous philosopher Hegel was also born here in 1770. 

DESCENDING THE NECKAR. 

Canstatt, northward from Stuttgart, where the an- 
cient Counts of Wurtemberg had their mediaeval 
castle before founding the capital, has been noted for 
its mineral springs and sanitary establishments, but 
more recently has been developing extensive manufac- 
tures. Westward from Stuttgart in the heart of the 
Black Forest, and situated in the narrow pine-clad 
gorge of the little river Enz, a tributary of the ^eckar, 
are the mineral springs of Wildbad, at fourteen hun- 
dred feet elevation, the warm alkaline waters being 
used as a cure for rheumatism and gout. There are 
extensive bathing houses and hotels, and ten thousand 
visitors will come here in the season. The ravine of 
the Enz discloses romantic scenery, and tradition has 
peopled this region with elfish water-sprites. The 



DESCENDING THE NECKAR. 231 

Xeckar flows northward from Cannstatt through a 
deep and winding valley, and a short distance from it, 
a few miles north of Stuttgart, is the chief Wiirtem- 
berg military depot and arsenal at Ludwigsburg. The 
statue of its founder, Duke Eberhard Ludwig, who 
died in 1733, adorns the market place. It seems that 
the Duke got somewhat jealous of Stuttgart and began 
this town as a rival about 1704. His policy was con- 
tinued by his successors for over a century, and Schil- 
ler came to live here for a while, his statue recently 
erected ornamenting the Wilhelms-Platz. The early 
development of Duke Ludwig's plans was the erection 
of an enormous palace now uninhabited, which con- 
tains no less than four hundred and thirty-two rooms, 
is adorned by a gallery of portraits of the Wurtemberg 
rulers and surrounded by spacious ornamental 
grounds. Among its embellishments is a fine artifi- 
cial ruin, the Emichsburg, having a charming view 
from its balcony. There are splendid avenues of noble 
trees leading in various directions, but the fact that so 
much magnificence and beauty thus created has been 
abandoned in more recent times, is rather saddening, 
but an enormous fortune was necessary to keep up 
this extensive establishment. Farther northward on 
the Neckar are the ancient castle and Gothic church 
of Lauffen, each standing picturesquely on a rock with 
the river swiftly flowing between. 

Going farther down the Neckar, the busy industrial 
city of Heilbronn spreads broadly along both banks 
in the widened valley, its media}val flavor being now 



232 THE RHINE. 

more profitably seasoned by a brisk business develop- 
ment. It still, however, displays the quaint old houses 
and narrow streets of the middle ages in the ancient 
part of the town, and carefully preserves the Church 
of St. Kilian, which was begun in the early eleventh 
century, its tall, sixteenth century, Eenaissance tower 
rising conspicuously in the view. This place was 
known to the Eomans who originally came to take its 
waters, and their virtues were also extolled in the time 
of the early German Empire, the carefully preserved 
quaint Deutches Haus having in those days been an 
imperial palace. On the gateway to an opposite inn 
there is a curious inscription recording that the Em- 
peror Charles V. spent four weeks here and was cured 
by the Heilbronn waters. The name of the spring 
originally was the Heiligbronn, — the healing spring — 
this title having been bestowed by Charlemagne from 
the spring which until 1857 was to be seen issuing 
under the high altar of St. Kilian. Adjoining the 
church is the ancient Market Place, while opposite 
rises the picturesque old Town Hall approached by 
a lofty staircase. This Rathhaus is redolent with 
memories of the most noted ruler of the town in the 
middle ages, the robust Imperial Knight Gotz von 
Berlichingen, immortalized in Goethe's drama. In 
its Council Chamber this brusque champion is said to 
have alike cured "headache, toothache and every other 
human malady," by blows from his "Iron Hand." 
Over by the riverside is the square red stone tower, 
known as the Gotzenthurm, where he was imprisoned 



DESCENDING THE NECKAR. 2'S'd 

for a night in 1519. This Germanic hero was born in 
1480 and acquired great influence. He early lost his 
hand at the siege of Landshut, supplying it with an 
iron substitute, so that he became popularly known 
as "Gotz of the Iron Hand." He was a daring, tur- 
bulent leader, with a large following, and was in- 
volved in constant feuds with the neighboring barons, 
finally fighting against them on the side of the peas- 
ants, in what was known as the "Peasants' War," ter- 
minating in 1525. For this offence he was placed 
under a ban by the Emperor Maximilian. His exploits 
are the theme of many romances, and he finally died 
in 1562 in his picturesque castle of Hornberg, over- 
looking the Xeckar, some miles farther northward, 
where his armor still hangs on the wall. Near here 
flows in the Jagst from the eastward, and up its deeply 
carved gorge is Berlichingen, with the castle near by 
where Gotz was born. In this valley is the old walled 
town of Mochmiihl, which Gotz valiantly defended in 
1519 against the attacks of the Suabian League, the 
extensive ruins of its defensive works being yet care- 
fully preserved. 

Farther northward flows in the charming river Elz 
coming out of the mysterious fastnesses of the Oden- 
wald, redolent with stories of the wild huntsmen. 
The banks of the river are thickly studded with old- 
time castles in all stages of attractive ruin. It merrily 
w^ashes the shores of the lovely valley of Eberbach, 
where the timber-cutters have control, and above 
which is the massive Katzenbuckel, the highest hill 



234 THE RHINE. 

of the Odenwald, a red sandstone rock with a sur- 
mounting tower, rising about twenty-one hundred feet, 
and giving a splendid view in all directions. About 
five miles beyond the Elz is the most picturesque por- 
tion of the lower Neckar valley, the stream swiftly 
flowing between wooded sloping hills and tall red 
cliffs, past Hirschhorn, having high above it the old 
castle of the barons of Hirschhorn, of whom all that 
now remains are their monuments in the old monas- 
tery chapel. Then comes Dilsberg, its ancient castle 
being used as a prison, mostly for refractory Heidel- 
berg University students, whose treatment, however, 
is not very rigorous, as when they will, it seems they 
can make excursions in the neighboring forest taking 
the cell-keys with them, so that visitors may not be 
admitted during their absence. Next is the pretty 
village of Neckarsteinach, formerly the seat of the 
valiant race of Steinachs, who became extinct in the 
seventeenth century. These knights were so famous 
for their raids and ruffianism that they were called the 
Jlaubritter or "robber knights," and the LandscJiaden 
or "land-scourge." High on the hills are perched 
their four old castles, bearing testimony to their 
power, the Berg Schadeck or the "Swallow's Xest" 
frowning over a precipice, while the Mittleberg has 
been restored. All these knights, however, ultimately 
came to the same end, for in the church are monu- 
ments recording the virtues of these rovers of the 
Black Forest and the Odenwald, whose exploits fur- 
nish the basis for many German romances. 



HEIDELBERG. 235 



HEIDELBERG. 

Thus the Neckar comes to the great rock of the 
Konigsttihl, at the foot of which the long and narrow 
city of Heidelberg is crowded into the contracted 
space between the hill and the river, just where the 
latter emerges from the forest-clad slopes to wind 
over the level land seeking the Ehine at Mannheim. 
The Konigstiihl, the "King's Seat," is the great but- 
tress at the entrance to the Odenwald, and past its 
base the river quietly flows out to the fertile plain. 
The city is on the southern bank of the Neckar about 
twelve miles from the Ehine, and in a superb location. 
Placed at the entrance to the gorge, it has both 
behind and in front, lofty hills covered with vine- 
yards and forests. Between them, deep down flows 
the river, and out to the westward the country opens 
into the broad Ehine plain, cultivated like a garden, 
and having along the far-off horizon beyond, a fringe 
of the distant and scarcely perceptible Vosges moun- 
tains. Across the Neckar, opposite the town, abruptly 
rises the Heiligenberg, a vine-clad hill wooded toward 
the summit and crowned with the ruins of an ancient 
chapel. Half-way up this hill, a famous road, the 
Philosophenweg, is laid along its slope for two miles, 
displaying attractive views. Upon the Jettenbuttel, 
a spur of the Konigstiihl, popularly called the "Castle 
hill," stands the great ruined Schloss of Heidelberg 



236 THE RHINE. 

at an elevation of about three hundred and thirty feet 
above the river, commanding the entrance to the 
gorge, and overhanging the western part of the town. 
While a ruin, yet its beautiful situation, its wonderful 
history, extent and magnificence, have made it the 
most noteworthy as it certainly is among the grandest 
and largest of the old castles of Germany. The his- 
torian tells us that Heidelberg has been "five times 
bombarded, twice laid in ashes, thrice taken by as- 
sault and delivered over to pillage," in the ferocious 
French devastations of the Palatinate. The library 
in this castle w^as, in 1622, one of the most valuable 
in Europe, but Tilly then gave over the town to three 
days of unrestricted pillage, and used the valuable 
books and more precious manuscripts for littering his 
horses. The castle, however, was but little in- 
jured. When Louis XIV. subsequently claimed the 
Palatinate, it was captured by Count Melac in Octo- 
ber, 1688, and held throughout the winter. The Ger- 
mans rallied in the spring for its recapture, and Melac 
evacuating it in March, caused the fortifications to be 
blown up, the palace and town burnt; and such parts 
as then escaped destruction, the French came back 
and ruined in another wholesale devastation four 
years later. There was a subsequent restoration, but 
in 1764, the great red octagon tower was struck by 
lightning, the castle catching fire and being reduced 
to a mass of roofless walls, so that since then it has 
neither been restored nor inhabited. It is now one of 
the most picturesque ruins in Europe, farther decay 



HEIDELBERG. 237 

being prevented by the labors of a patriotic society 
with widespread membership, the Heidelberger 
Schlossverein, who look after its preservation. 

There w^as a defensive castle at the entrance to the 
Neckar valley from the earliest times, and in 1155 
the redoubtable Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who had 
been made the Count Palatine of the Ehine, selected 
it as his chief residence. Under his successors the 
town and castle grew, and for five centuries this was 
the capital of the Palatinate, until the Elector Charles 
Philip transferred it to Mannheim. Early in the nine- 
teenth century Heidelberg became part of Baden. 
During all the time it w^as the capital, the Schloss was 
enlarged and extended by various rulers, reaching its 
vast proportions as a palace as well as a castle in the 
early seventeenth century. To-day its old red sand- 
stone broken walls, roofless apartments and over- 
thrown tower make it one of the finest and most at- 
tractive ruins in the world. There is ivy here which 
has been clinging to the w^alls for centuries with 
stalks resembling the trunks of trees. The amazing 
strength of its construction is shown in the massive 
walls, fifteen to twenty feet thick, and the wonderful 
adhesion of the masonry of the towers, which when 
blown up by the French did not crumble to pieces, 
one of them, the Pulver Tower at the southeastern 
angle, blown up in 1693, divided, and one-half in an 
unbroken mass fell into the castle moat on the face of 
the hill just below, where it still lies. This, now 
known as the Gesprengte Thurm, the "blown up 



238 THE RHINE. 

tower/' is ninety-three feet in diameter and has walls 
twenty-one feet thick, there having been long case- 
mated passages beneath it. The buildings were con- 
strncted around the inner Schlosshof or castle-yard, in 
an irregular grouping. The outer walls were for de- 
fence, while the fagades facing this yard were highly 
ornamented, displaying great artistic skill, so that the 
picturesque effect of the carvings and the clinging ivy 
and shrubbery is most impressive. The sculptures 
are generally in yellow sandstone brought from Heil- 
bronn, which contrasts with the red walls. These 
sculptures have generally been restored, and among 
them are statues of Charlemagne and the whole line 
of ancestral German and Palatinate rulers, down to 
the seventeenth century. There are also many Scrip- 
tural, allegorical and mythological figures, repre- 
senting the attributes of the princely families who 
have held the castle. An attractive exhibition of an- 
tiquities and art is connected with the Schloss, and a 
spacious garden, its broad terrace commanding a 
beautiful view of the ruined castle, and also far to 
the westward over the lovely plain across which the 
Neckar winds a silver streak to join the distant Ehine. 
The visitor to Heidelberg is usually told that it has 
a University which is of great fame, though a modest 
structure, but that the chief curiosities are the Schloss, 
the Tun and the Church of the Holy Ghost. Down in 
the Schloss cellar under the ruined chapel is the 
famous Heidelberg Tun, the largest wine-cask in the 
world, built in 1751, for the Elector Charles-Theodor, 



HEIDELBERG. 239 

to hold eight hundred hogsheads of Neckar wine. It 
lies on its side, is twenty-three feet high and thirty- 
two feet long, and mounting on top, one can look into 
the bnng-hole which is about three inches in diameter. 
It is held together by enormous w^ooden hoops. There 
is a strange statue in front, of a fat little fellow, all 
puffed out and swollen, this being Perkeo, the then 
court jester, who could drink eighteen bottles at one 
sitting. The guide showing the place, humorously ex- 
plained, pointing to the statue and then to the Tun, 
"that held eighteen bottles and this held three hun- 
dred thousand bottles." The Tun has been for many 
years empty. 

The Heilig-Geist-'kirclie — the Church of the Holy 
Ghost — stands alongside the Market Place down near 
the river. It is neither large nor architecturally 
grand, but its history is very curious, for the religious 
wars protracted through centuries, raged fiercely 
around and within this church. It was erected at the 
beginning of the fifteenth century under the auspices 
of Palatine Count Eupert III. who greatly enlarged 
the Schloss during his reign, and the choir contains 
his tomb and that of his wife, Elizabeth. It was then 
a Catholic Church, but afterward, with the ruling 
faith of the Palatinate it became Protestant, and then 
it was subsequently used by both religions conjointly, 
after many years of fierce combat to decide which 
should possess it. In 1705, the Catholic Count Pala- 
tine Johann Wilhelm, to enable both sects to use it, 
had a dividing wall built across the middle of the 



240 THE RHINE. 

church at the transept, and separating the nave from 
the choir, the Roman Catholics occupying the latter, 
and the Old Catholics (Protestants) the former. This 
did not end the strife, as each wished to oust the other. 
In 1719, the Roman Catholics got possession of the 
whole church, and the wall was torn down. Then the 
Old Catholics appealed to the Diet of the German 
Empire, were restored to the nave, and the wall re- 
built. The quarrels about the party-wall in this quaint 
old church, at times involved in the dispute the whole 
German Empire as well as the French. But ulti- 
mately the strife was assuaged by the progress of 
time, the Roman Catholics got their own church 
elsewhere, and the wall is still there, with the Old 
Catholics worshipping on one side and the Lutherans 
on the other. This church once contained the monu- 
ments of all the Palatinate rulers, but they were 
ruined in the wholesale French destruction of Heidel- 
berg. Almost the only house in the town which then 
escaped stands opposite, the quaint Hotel zum Bitter, 
There is also the Protestant Church of St. Peter, not 
far away, with a fine open-work Gothic tower, which 
is noted as the church where Jerome of Prague fas- 
tened on the door his famous theses. 

The University Buildings are on the Ludwigs- 
Platz, where over a thousand students usually attend. 
This is regarded as the cradle of learning in southern 
Germany, and was founded by the Elector Rupert I. 
in 1386, achieving greatest renown in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries, when it became the chief 



HEIDELBERG. 241 

seat of- learning of the Eeformers and the centre of 
what then was known as ''Humanism/' It suffered 
greatl}^ in the wars, was revived in the early nine- 
teenth century by the Grand Duke Charles Frederick 
of Baden, and celebrated its five hundredth anniver- 
sary with solemn ceremonial in 1886, while in August, 
1903, the centenary of its revival was marked by sev- 
eral days of festivity and historical assemblages, at- 
tended by prominent scholars from both Continents. 
The University Library, which had been seriously 
plundered in the past, still has over four hundred 
thousand volumes and valuable manuscripts, includ- 
ing many originals of Luther. The connection with 
duelling of the students at Heidelberg has attained 
wide notoriety, their attachment to fighting bodies 
leading to frequent conflicts, so that they are often 
seen going about full of wounds and scars. This cus- 
tom is more general among the younger men, and is 
said to have recently fallen somewhat into disuse 
under various discouragements. Most of the duels 
are fought across the Neckar at the Hirchgasse, a 
popular resort for the students. 

There are many points of vantage on the hills 
around Heidelberg, displaying magnificent landscapes, 
but probably the best view is from the tall tower at 
the "King's Seat," the top of the Konigstiihl, at nearlv 
two thousand feet elevation. The display of moun- 
tain, river and plain, for many miles is much like that 
seen out of a balloon. But after all, the memories 
and charms of Heidelberg cluster mainly around the 

i6 



242 THE RHINE. 

red and ivy-covered ruins of the snperb Schloss. Bul- 
wer has written that it is "girt by its massive walls 
and hanging terraces, round which, from place to 
place clings the dwarfed and various foliage, while 
high at the rear rises the huge mountain, covered, 
save at its extreme summit, with dark trees, and con- 
cealing in its mysterious breast the shadowy beings 
of the legendary world. Toward the ruins, and up a 
steep ascent, you may see a few scattered sheep thinly 
studding the broken ground. Aloft, above the ram- 
parts, rises, desolate and huge, the palace of the Elec- 
tors of the Palatinate. In its broken walls you may 
trace the tokens of the lightning that blasted its an- 
cient pomp, but still leaves in the vast extent of pile, 
a fitting monument to the memory of Charlemagne." 
William Pitt has said : 

"Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies, and all 
That shared its shelter, perish in its fall." 

To the deeply impressed visitor, however, the his- 
tory and decay of Heidelberg Schloss, best recalls 
the inscription on the ruined gate at Melrose Abbey : 

"The Earth goes on the Earth, glittering with gold; 
The Earth goes on the Earth, sooner than it should; 
The Earth builds on the Earth, castles and towers; 
The Earth savs to the Earth : All this is ours." 



THE MIDDLE RHINE AND MAIN. 



IV. 



THE MIDDLE RHINE AND J^IAIN. 



Worms — Martin Luther — The Rosengarten — The Don- 
nersberg — The Hasenbiihl — Erfelden — Oppenheim — 
Landskron — Nierstein — The Odenwald — The Berg- 
strasse — Lorsch — Auerbacher Castle — The Melibocus 

— Darmstadt — The Hessians — The River Main — The 
Fichtelgebirge — The Schneeberg — The Weissmain- 
quelle — Bayreuth — Richard Wagner — Bamberg — 
Wiirzburg — Karlstadt — Gemiinden — The Scherenberg 

— Kissingen — The Spessart — The Geyersberg — 
Miltenberg — Klingenberg — Asehaffenburg — Dettin- 
gen — Hanau — Offenbach — Sachsenhausen — Frank- 
fort — The Rothschilds — The Taunus — The Great 
Feldberg — Homburg — The Saalberg — Cronberg — 
Burg Falkenstein — Konigstein — Soden — Hochst — 
Hochheim — Mayence — St. Boniface — Gutenberg — 
Wiesbaden — Schlengenbad — Schwalbach — Burg Ho- 
henstein — Biebrich — Nasonga — The Rheingau — 
Eltville — Kiedrich — Marcobrunnen — Eberbach — 
The Steinberg — Oestrich — Mittelheim — Winkel — 
Ingelheim — Johannisberg — Riidesheim — The Nie- 
derwald — The German National Monument — The 
River Nahe — The Soonwald — Oberstein — Dhaun — 
Sobernheim — Bockelheim — Miinster-am-Stein — Rliein- 
grafenstein — Ebernburg — Kreuznach — Kauzenberg 

— Bingen — Klopp — Tlie Roehuscapelle — St. Roch — 
Hildegard — Ehrenfels — The Mouse Tower — Bishop 
Hatto — Mrs. Norton's Poem. 

245 



246 THE RHINE. 



WORMS. 

Old Father Ehine, reinforced by the Neckar's ample 
stream^ and majestic with increasing volume, flows 
proudly northward from Mannheim. It winds 
grandly through the wide and rather monotonous, 
but fertile plain, toward the distant hills of the Tau- 
nus, the high and, in places, almost mountainous 
plateau which spreads broadly across the country be- 
yond the river Main. Far over to the westward rise 
the dim and hazy borders of the Yosges, at the hori- 
zon, while to the distant eastward are the dark forests 
of the Odenwald, stretching all the way from the 
[N'eckar to the Main. We have come into the land of 
the Hessians, and are crossing Hesse Darmstadt. 
Fourteen miles north of Mannheim, the Ehine flows 
past the quays of the ancient and renowned city of 
Worms. The fertile vale of the Wannegau to the 
westward of the river early attracted the origi- 
nal German tribes and is to-day a prolific land of 
vineyards. Here the Eoman invaders found the Van- 
giones and made the place their colony of Borbeto- 
magus. The Burgundians in the fifth century, su- 
perseded the Eomans, selecting it for the capital of 
their kingdom, and to them succeeded Charlemagne 
and the Frankish kings who frequently lived here. 
Then Worms became a great city of the Empire and 
was in the midst of the protracted quarrels between 



WORMS. 247 

the German Emperors and the princes of the church, 
and as the people usually fought the bishops, the em- 
perors constantly added to the privileges of the city 
by way of reward. Worms and Mayence, to the north- 
ward, united iri the thirteenth century in founding 
the powerful Confederation of the Ehenish cities. 
Here, at the Eeformation, was held, in April, 1521, 
hj the Emperor Charles Y., the renowned Diet of 
Worms, before which Luther defended his reformed 
church doctrines, concluding his address with the 
memorable words, so often quoted and inscribed in 
all this region : ''Here I stand : I cannot act other- 
wise : God help me ! Amen V Worms sadly suffered in 
the wars that followed, and in 1689 was overrun, pil- 
laged and almost entirely destroyed by the French, 
the Cathedral, a church or two and the synagogue 
being almost the only public buildings remaining in 
the heap of smouldering ruins that represented the 
savagely devastated city. In Napoleon's time it was 
under French domination, but after his downfall it 
was assigned to Hesse Darmstadt. The town then had 
become so much reduced that it had barely six thou- 
sand people, having never recovered from the French 
desolation, which drove away most of the inhabitants. 
Yet in its prosperous days when it was patronized by 
the German Imperial Court, the population rose to 
seventy thousand, and so frequently was the Emperor 
here at elaborate functions, that Worms became 
known as the "Mother of Diets." 

The memory of Luther and the city's greatest his- 



248 THE RHINE. 

torical event, his appearance at the Diet, are com- 
memorated by the modern Luther Monument, erected 
in 1868 in a public square on the edge of the older 
town. Lnther^s statue in colossal bronze stands upon 
a high pedestal, rising in the centre of a spacious 
platform. Smaller pedestals surround it, and there 
are also medallions and reliefs appropriately sculp- 
tured. Luther in his left hand holds the Bible, on 
which his right hand rests, his face gazing upward. 
Other chiefs of the Eeformation surround him. At 
the corners sit the four precursors of the new dis- 
pensation, Huss, Savonarola, Wycliffe and Petrus 
Waldus. In front stand Philip of Hesse and Frederick 
of Saxony, and at the back Melanchthon and Eeuch- 
lin. There are also allegorical figures representing 
prominent cities in the Eeformation, — Magdeburg, 
mourning; Augsburg, confessing; and Speyer, pro- 
testing. There are also represented, the arms of 
twenty-four German towns that early embraced the 
reformed faith. The square in which this superb 
monument stands is called Luther Platz, and the 
Bishop's House, where Luther appeared at the Diet 
in 1521 originally stood near by but was burnt by the 
French. 

The Cathedral is a short distance southeast, and 
in the open space in front, are located some of the 
principal legendary scenes referring to the time when 
Worms was the Burgundian capital, recorded in the 
great German mediaeval epic, the "Nibelungenlied." 
The ancient Cathedral, dedicated to St. Peter and St. 



WORMS. 249 

Paul, dates from the eleventh century, and much of 
the older work remains. It is one of the finest Ko- 
manesque structures on the Ehine, with an impres- 
sive exterior. It has a double choir, two domes, and 
four slender round towers rise at the angles. It is 
about four hundred and twent}^ feet long and the nave 
rises over one hundred feet. 

The Jewish community in Worms is of very ancient 
origin and its synagogue in the Judengasse, a semicir- 
cular street having a public square in front, is an old 
and unassuming building erected in the eleventh cen- 
tury, which has been recently modernized. There are 
probably fourteen hundred in this Jewish quarter, 
the descendants of a long lineage, their ancestors hav- 
ing been here continuously since before the Christian 
era. A curious tradition respecting them, and illus- 
trating the efforts to conciliate their mediasval op- 
pressors, is that the Jews of Worms gave their voice 
against the crucifixion, but their messenger did not 
arrive at Jerusalem until after the event. The old 
Paulus Church built in the twelfth century, and re- 
garded as equally attractive with the Cathedral, now 
contains the Paulus Museum of German antiquities, 
most of them relating to ancient Worms, and the 
Rhine region. In the northeastern suburbs are the 
vineyards, producing the famous wine known as the 
Liebfrauenmilch, getting its name from the old church 
of that district, the Liebfrauen-kirche, the "Church 
of Our Lady.^' This edifice escaped destruction when 
the city was burnt. It was consecrated in 1467, and 



250 THE RHINE. 

upon the keystone of the vaulted roof are the arms of 
the various civic corporations of Worms that con- 
tributed to the building. Across the Ehine, opposite 
the city is a broad meadow, known as the Eosengarten, 
around which a channel of the Ehine originally flowed, 
and here were the scenes of various romantic legends 
of the Nibelungenlied and other heroic poems. All 
about this region are places celebrated in the great 
German epic. Westward from Worms in the mountain 
ranges, rises the towering Donnersberg, over twenty- 
two hundred feet, the Mons Jovis of the Eomans, who 
found on the summit, a Celtic fort of which ruins yet 
remain. A tall tower has been constructed there 
commanding an extensive view. On the lower emi- 
nence, to the eastward, the Hasenbiihl, in 1298 the 
Emperor Adolph of Nassau was defeated and slain 
by his rival, Albert of Austria. Both were afterward 
interred in the Speyer Cathedral. The Konigskreuz, 
a red sandstone figure of the Saviour stood for cen- 
turies on the battlefield and is now preserved in a 
neighboring church. 

The Ehine winds upon the broad and almost level 
plain northward from Worms past Erfelden, where 
Gustavus Adolphus crossed the river, and the tradi- 
tion tells us his Swedish troops the while sang psalms. 
Thence it comes to ancient Oppenheim, the Eoman 
Bauconica, ruined by the French in 1689, and domi- 
nated on the hill alongside the river, by the red re- 
mains of old Landskron castle and the imposing red- 
sandstone Church of St. Catharine. The strong fort- 



\ 



BERGSTRASSE AND DARMSTADT. 251 

ress of Landskron, built by the Emperor Lothaire, was 
once among the most powerful defences of the Rhine 
and here died the Emperor Eupert in 1410. The 
churchy which is farther down the hillslope, is a su- 
perb Gothic construction of the thirteenth century, 
partly destroyed by the French;, but now restored. 
About a mile northward are the vineyards of Mer- 
stein, producing the ISTiersteiner wines, under which 
name, however, most of the Hessian Rhine wines are 
said to be sold. Farther northward the Rhine reaches 
the great ridge of the Taunus, and the river Main 
flows into it at Mayence. 

THE BERGSTRASSE AND DARMSTADT. 

Far over eastward from the Rhine rise the dark hills 
of the Odenwald stretching all along the horizon. 
Their western slopes are clothed T\dth vineyards, fruit 
gardens and orchards, which run off over the level 
plain toward the great river. Northward from Hei- 
delberg to Darmstadt, the Romans constructed a 
road along the edge of this fertile slope, called the 
Bergstrasse, and the name has thus been given in a 
broader sense to the fruitful district. Prosperous vil- 
lages are scattered along this road, and ruined castles, 
once the strongholds of heroes whose deeds are al- 
most forgotten, crown the hilltops. In the middle 
ages this region was dominated by the monastery of 
Lorsch, whose remains are exhibited at that village. 
Its Michaelskappelle, still well preserved, is a relic of 



252 THE RHINE. 

the ninth centur}^ and was the original monastery 
gate built in the form of a Roman triumphal arch. 
It is double-storied, with a high pitched roof and is 
still used for a chapel. Charlemagne banished to 
Lorsch the traitor Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, in 788, 
shortly after the foundation of the monastery. Lewis 
of Germany about a century later built this gate, and 
he and several descendants were interred here, their 
stone coffins being exhibited. It was in the vaults 
of Lorsch, the poem tells us, were interred Queen 
TJte, and the hero Siegfried of the Xibelungenlied. 
To the northward is the great Auerbacher castle, on 
an eminence rising nearly twelve hundred feet, 
founded by Charlemagne and afterward a fief of 
Lorsch. The French, under Turenne, blew it up, but 
there has been a partial restoration. Beyond is the 
highest point of the Bergstrasse, the Melibocus, a 
granite promontory rising seventeen hundred feet, 
its slopes well wooded, and the tower on the summit 
displaying a grand view. 

About ten miles farther northward is Darmstadt, 
the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, but while 
an old town, having had only comparatively recent 
development. The Landgraves and Grand Dukes 
have lived here for over three centuries, but the chief 
j)rosperity of the ,place was given it in the early nine- 
teenth century by the Grand Duke Ludwig L, who 
died in 1830. In gratitude, the people have erected 
his statue on a tall column in the Luizen Platz, one 
of the chief public squares. The extensive Schloss, 



BERGSTRASSE AND DARMSTADT. 253 

or Grand Ducal Palace, to the eastward, was begun in 
the fifteenth century. It is in German Eenaissance 
and was for two centuries building. It contains a 
library of over six hundred thousand volumes, and 
four thousand manuscripts, and extensive collections 
of paintings, engravings, antiquities, coins and sculp- 
tures, the whole upper floor being a picture gallery, 
mainly formed during the last century. The famous 
painting by Holbein the Younger, The Madonna with 
the Family of Burgomaster Meyer of Basle, executed 
in 1526, is in this collection, and there are also some 
works by Eembrandt and Eubens. Near by is an 
elaborate new museum building for some of the col- 
lections, and in front of it the Monument for the Hes- 
sian soldiers who fell in the Franco-German war of 
1870-71. There are several attractive churches, and 
the city has tasteful parks and pleasure grounds with 
wide streets and numerous public buildings. To the 
eastward rise the bordering hills of the Mathildenhohe 
and the Eosenhohe, the latter surmounted by the 
Mausoleum containing the remains of Ludwig IV. and 
his wife, who was the Princess Alice of England, and 
died in 1878. Extensive forests and hunting grounds 
stretch off beyond far into the Odenwald. Hesse, as 
a Landgraviate, originally covered a large territory, 
stretching far northward beyond the Main, but several 
centuries ago was divided, the portion beyond that 
river and surrounding the populous city of Frankfort, 
becoming Hesse Cassel. It was in this region the 
process first began of hiring out the Hessian troops as 



254 THE RHINE. 

mercenaries to foreign powers^, as a means of improv- 
ing the financial strength of the Hessian treasury. 
This procedure was inaugurated in 1670;, under the 
rule of the Landgrave Charles I. It continued for 
over a century, bringing the Hessian treasury much 
revenue. In the American revolution, England thus 
hired twenty-two thousand Hessian troops for service 
against the Colonies, paying for their services various 
sums, amounting to nearly $16,000,000. 

THE RIVER MAIN". 

Northward of Darmstadt about sixteen miles, the 
river Main flows toward the west past Frankfort, seek- 
ing the Ehine at Mayence. It comes from the south- 
east around the Odenwald, separating it by a deep, 
wide and fertile valley from the great ridge of the 
Taunus, to the northward. In the central part of 
Germany, and forming by its plateaus and summits, 
a hydrographic watershed in Franconia from which 
the rivers flow away in all directions, rises the great 
elevation of the extensive Fichtelgebirge. The streams 
of its northern and eastern slopes seek the Elbe, their 
waters going northward to the Baltic; the southern 
tributaries go out through the Danube eastward to the 
Black Sea; and those of the western declivities form 
the Main, which after a tortuous course westward 
through romantic scenery for about three hundred 
miles, falls into the Ehine. The Main and the Danube 
waters are connected by the Ludwigs Canal. The 



THE RIVER MAIN. 255 

highest summit of the Fichtelgebirge, the Schnee- 
berg, rises nearly thirty-five hundred feet, surrounded 
by a galaxy of lower peaks. It is a mass of granite 
and gneiss, crowned by a group of rocks about twenty- 
five feet high, called the "oven." On its southwestern 
slope at twenty-nine hundred feet elevation, is the 
Weissmainquelle, an excellently flowing spring, which 
is the source of the Main, the brook bounding merrily 
away down the mountain side, j^ot far away is Bay- 
reuth, the capital of Upper Franconia, and one of the 
noted cities of Bavaria, to which it has belonged since 
early in the nineteenth century. In the approach to 
the place its great Lunatic Asylum and the Eichard 
Wagner theatre are conspicuous, the active stream of 
the Eoter Main flowing through the valley beyond. 
The chief highway is the Eichard Wagner Strasse, 
where his house is located, and the great composer, 
who died in 1883, is buried in the garden. Not far 
away lived Liszt, the composer, who died here in 1886. 
There are many interesting buildings constructed in 
previous centuries by Margraves of Brandenburg, who 
then ruled the town, and in the old church are their 
tombs. The town in later years has been chiefly de- 
voted to Wagner and gets much income from the mu- 
sical devotees attending the Wagnerian festivals. Be- 
sides the profits of the Bayreuth theatre, Wagner's 
heirs are said in 1902 to have received $115,000 from 
royalties on the performances of his operas in different 
parts of the world, Tannliaeuser yielding $32,750, and 
Lohengrin $68,000, of which latter $23,000 came from 



256 THE RHINE. 

America. This opera had 1,729 performances during 
the year. The great Eichard Wagner theatre rises 
high on the hillside in the northern snbnrbs, and 
here were first performed, in 1876, his Nibelungen- 
Ring, and in 1882, his Parsifal, nnder the powerful 
patronage of King Ludwig of Bavaria. On the top of 
the hill, at nearly sixteen hundred feet elevation, is 
the great war tower of the Siegesthurm, commemorat- 
ing the fallen in 1870-71. There are charming sub- 
urbs all around Bayreuth and to the eastward is the 
chateau of the Eremitage, full of memories of Freder- 
ick the Great and his sister Wilhelmine who lived here 
and wrote her memoirs, her husband having been the 
Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg, who died in 
1763. 

The Main, meandering westward receives the Reg- 
nitz, whence the Ludwigs Canal goes off southward to 
the Danube, and here, about three miles from the 
Main, is ancient Bamberg, in a very fertile valley, the 
old houses and narrow streets running up the adja- 
cent hillslopes, which are surmounted by picturesque 
old churches. The most impressive of these is the 
great Bamberg Cathedral, crowned by its four towers, 
two at each end, rising two hundred and sixty-five 
feet, and built in eight stories. This is one of the 
most famous Eomanesque structures in Germany, and 
was founded by the Emperor Henry II., in 1004, 
though mainly built two centuries later. It is three 
hundred and twelve feet long and nearly ninety feet 
high, and adorned by splendid sculptures. Among the 



THE RIVER MAIN. 257 

highly ornamented portals are the southeastern, called 
the "Marriage Door," and the northeastern named the 
"Mother of God" or "Grace Door." In the centre of 
the nave is the magnificent marble sarcophagus of the 
founder, Henry II., and his consort Kunigunde. 
Their effigies, over life-size, lie alongside each other 
on the top, while reliefs on the sides depict scenes in 
their lives, among them being a representation of the 
Empress proving her innocence by walking unharmed 
over red-hot plough-shares. The Emperor Conrad 
III., who lived a century later, was buried here, and 
his equestrian figure is exhibited alongside the ap- 
proach to the choir. There are many other memor- 
ials, including those of Pope Clement II., once bishop 
of Bamberg, who died in 1047, and Bishop Otto IL, 
the Saint, dying in 1196. An ivory crucifix of the 
fourth century is exhibited, and the treasury contains 
various relics, including a nail of the True Cross, the 
skulls of Henry II. and Kunigunde, the Emperor's 
crown, sword, knife and drinking horn, and the Em- 
press's combs and chasuble. The Cathedral is upon 
the Carolinen Platz, and also here are the two Eoyal 
Palaces. The picturesque old palace or Alte Eesidenz, 
was built in the sixteenth century, and is fronted by 
a lofty gable and handsome portal and jutting win- 
dow. On this site stood the older historical building 
in which King Berengarius of Lombardy died a pris- 
oner in the tenth century, and where the Count Pala- 
tine Otho killed the Emperor Philip of Suabia in 
1208. The Xeue Eesidenz was built at the close of 

17 



258 THE RHINE. 

tlie seventeenth century, an extensive structure on 
two sides of the square. Occupied by i^apoleon in 
1806, he issued here his declaration of war against 
Prussia, and from that time, for thirty years, it was 
the palace of Duke William of Bavaria. He was the 
father-in-law of the French Marshal Ber'thier, who 
was crazed by the return of N'apoleon from Elba, and 
on June 1st, 1815, killed himself by jumping out of 
an east window. Upon the higher elevation of the 
Michaelsberg, to the northwestward, are the remains 
of the old Benedictine Abbey, founded by Henry II., 
the imposing Church of St. Michael, having been re- 
stored, while the Public Museum and Gallery of Paint- 
ings are in some of the Abbey buildings which are 
comparatively, modern structures. The highest emi- 
nence, the Altenberg, of twelve hundred feet eleva- 
tion, is crowned by an ancient castle, its towers giv- 
ing a charming view over the river valley. Bamberg 
has many attractive old churches, a Eoyal Library of 
more than three hundred thousand volumes, and in 
the Maximilian Platz, above the Eegnitz, is the im- 
pressive modern Maximilian Fountain, with statues 
of Maximilian of Bavaria, Henry II., Kunigunde, 
Conrad IIL, and Bishop Otho, the Saint, who were 
patrons of the older city. 

ANCIENT WURZBURG. 

The Main, in enlarged volume, after making a great 
sweeping bend to the south, comes to the venerable 



ANCIENT WURZBURG. 259 

city of Wiirzburg, about sixty miles westward from 
Bamberg, but three times that distance by the river. 
This is the capital of Lower Franconia, beautifully 
situated amid vine-clad hills, the older town, which is 
largely of churches and ancient abbey buildings, en- 
circled by attractive promenades replacing the walls 
and defences, and the newer town covering a broad 
surface outside with modern structures. St. Boniface, 
whose ecclesiastical power was boundless in all this 
region, consecrated Burkardus, the first bishop of 
Wiirzburg in the eighth century, and the successive 
bishops accumulating vast wealth and great power, 
became the Dukes of Franconia in the twelfth cen- 
tury under the auspices of the German Emperor. 
From 741 until 1803 a continuous line of these prince- 
bishops governed Wiirzburg and Franconia, and in the 
later period they also ruled Bamberg. In the early 
nineteenth century Wiirzburg became part of Bavaria. 
The central square — the Residenz-Platz — is orna- 
mented by the great Franconia Fountain, a modern 
work surmounted by a statue emblematic of Franconia, 
and having life-size figures of three famous townsmen, 
Eiemenschneider, the sculptor, Vogelweide, the poet, 
and Griinewald, the painter. Upon this square fronts 
the Episcopal, now the Eoyal Palace, an enormous 
structure of the early eighteenth century, five hun- 
dred and fifty feet long, and the fagade rising seventy 
feet. There are seven interior courts, and the build- 
ing contains over three hundred rooms, a chapel and a 
theatre. The chief staircase is a grand construction, 



260 THE RHINE. 

its lofty ceiling adorned with an elaborate fresco of 
Olympus and the four quarters^ of the earth. The 
large Kaiser-Hall has on its ceiling a fresco of the 
marriage of the Emperor Frederick I. and Beatrice 
of Burgundy, solemnized at Wurzburg in the twelfth 
century. The chapel is decorated in marble and 
bronze, there is an extensive Picture Galler}^, and 
spacious wine cellars, where the royal vineyards con- 
tribute their Franconia wines, over six hundred casks 
being usually kept in store. 

The old Wiirzburg churches are famous. The Ca- 
thedral, dating from the eleventh century, has many 
monuments and relics, and an ancient tapestry from 
Antwerp, giving the history of the three martyrs, 
Saints Killian, Kolonat and Totnan, who were the 
apostles of Franconia in the tenth century. There is 
also a large crucifix by Tilmann Eiemenschneider, 
and his tombstone. The more modern Neumiinster 
church adjoins, having a red sandstone fagade. In 
the crypt the three Saints were buried, and their fes- 
tival day is July 8th. A tablet in the choir contains 
Latin and German inscriptions to Walther von der 
Vogelweide, who died in the thirteenth century, the 
greatest German poet and minstrel of his era. He was 
interred here in the old cloisters, since removed, and 
on his original tomb a vase was placed where the 
birds were fed, he having left a bequest to buy them 
food. His new monument contains a similar vase. 
In the Market Place is the beautiful Marien-Capelle, 
of elegant Gothic construction in the fourteenth and 



ANCIENT WURZBURG. 261 

fifteenth centuries, a fine spire being recently added. 
Much of the statuary here is by Eiemenschneider. 
The Stifthauger Church, surmounted by a lofty dome 
and towers, has in the court a reproduction of the 
Grotto of Lourdes. St. Burkhard down by the river, 
with its ancient gray towers, was built in the eleventh 
century, and the exterior remains much as then. The 
old bridge crossing the Main not far away, built in the 
fifteenth century, is also well preserved and contains 
old-time adornments in the form of statues of the 
Saints. The University of Wiirzburg, founded b)'" 
Bishop Julius in 1582, has extensive buildings and 
about fifteen hundred students. There are valuable 
collections, a picture gallery, and a library of nearly 
three hundred thousand volumes and old manuscripts. 
Bishop Julius also endowed the Julius Hospital, which 
has attached a noted medical school, its spacious 
buildings being richly endowed. From the height of 
the Mcolausberg, where there is a view-tower its 
summit elevated nearly twelve hundred feet, there is 
a magnificent landscape displayed, including the val- 
ley of the Main, and the extensive neighboring forests 
of the Frankenwald and the Steigerwald to the east 
and south, and the Spessart to the westward. Over 
across the Main, is the great fortress of the Marien- 
berg, above the river, rising to a thousand feet eleva- 
tion. The original castle here was taken by Gustavus 
Adolphus in 1631, and the fortress succeeded it, which 
has since dominated the town. 

The Main flows northwest from Wiirzburg, and at a 



262 THE RHINE. 

distance of about fifteen miles from that city is the 
ancient frontier outpost of the see of Wiirzbnrg, the 
town of Karlstadt, founded by Charles Martel and 
much favored by Charlemagne. It is still surrounded 
by the rugged walls and towers which enabled the 
doughty bishops to defy their northern enemies. Then 
the Main flows around a great bend to the northward, 
and turns south again. At the apex of this bend is 
Gemiinden, enclosed by wooded hill slopes over which 
once frowned the castle of Scherenberg, now a pictur- 
esque ruin, up to which the visitors climb to enjoy 
the superb view over the curving river valley, where 
the tributary gorge of the Frankische Saale comes in 
from the northeast. Far up this valley, nestling 
among the amphitheatre of high surrounding hills 
is the famous watering place of Bavaria, Kissingen, its 
springs having been early patronized by the Prince- 
Bishops of Wtirzburg. Its growth, however, has been 
almost entirely in the nineteenth century, when the 
fame of its waters had spread, and America, England 
and Eussia began sending armies of pilgrims to its 
noted Eacoczy spring, and also made a demand which 
causes vast numbers of bottles of the waters to be ex- 
ported. This region is extensively underlaid with 
saline deposits, and there has been laid out an exten- 
sive Cur-Garten, on the southern side of which is the 
Eacoczy and the Pandur springs, the latter also serv- 
ing baths, and on the northern side is the Maxbrun- 
nen, resembling Seltzer water. There are statues of 
the Kings Ludwig I. and Maximilian I., and an alle- 



THE SPESSART. 263 

gorical group representing the Goddess of Health im- 
parting to the Eacoczy and the Pandur their healing 
virtues. On either side are the elaborate buildings 
of the Curhaus and the Cursaal, while across the lit- 
tle river is the extensive bathing establishment. Here 
gather the crowds during the season, in the early 
morning, drinking the waters while the band plays, 
and they come back again in the early evening to again 
enjoy the music and the fashionable full-dress prome- 
nade. Prince Bismarck was a regular visitor here, 
and an attempt was made to assassinate him near by 
in 1874. There are extensive saline springs with 
evaporating works on the river to the northward, and 
a little way beyond is the noted Artesian well of the 
Schonbornsprudel, which, after being bored over two 
thousand feet to reach the stratum of salt, had to be 
abandoned, as it was injuring the Kissingen springs. 
All about these hills and vales of Franconia, there 
are mineral springs and baths. 

THE SPESSART. 

From Gemiinden, the Main turns southward, and 
flows around another great bend in that direction, 
finally coming north again far to the westward, and 
almost encircling the magnificent domain of the Spes- 
sart. This is one of the most extensive and admired 
forest districts of Germany, the primitive woods be- 
ing well-preserved, and it is noted for its gigantic 
oaks and beeches. The Main encircles it on the east, 



264 THE RHINE. 

south and west, while deep gorges on its northern 
border, have tributary streams going out both ways 
to that river. The southern portions are the finest, 
and from all sides, long hills radiate upward from the 
various streams like spokes to the central hub, which 
is the ponderous Geyersberg rising almost two thou- 
sand feet. Eoads and paths are constructed through- 
out, to display the beauties of the hill, gorge and 
woodland. On the Geyersberg is a view-tower giving 
a grand survey of the vast expanse of trees, and near 
by a massive and venerable oak, a thousand years old. 
The wild boar roams in this forest, and in its inmost 
recesses is Mespelbrunn in a charming location, the 
ancestral castle of Bishop Julius, who founded Wiirz- 
burg University and Hospital. 

Down at the southern extremity of the great bend 
by which the Main encircles this attractive forest, is 
the old town of Miltenberg, stretching along between 
the river and the hills that rise high above it, out of 
which, since the days of the Romans, the townspeople 
have been quarrying sandstone of varying colors to 
build castles and churches. Here is the castle of 
the Electors of Mayence, destroyed in the sixteenth 
century, but restored sufficiently to house an interest- 
ing collection of antiquities. Along the river bank for 
miles both ways, are laid fine roads, displaying the 
beauties of the romantic valley, with quarries in the 
hillsides, and old-time castles perched on their tops. 
On this road, northeast from Miltenberg, are the re- 
mains of an ancient rampart of the Germanic tribes 



THE SPESSART. 265 

antedating the Eoman occupation. Down the Main, 
about six miles north from Miltenberg is Klingenberg 
growing an excellent red wine in its vineyard-covered 
hills. It also has valuable pits of fire-clay, the yield 
of which is the fortune of the town. We are told that 
unlike most places on this mundane sphere, happy 
Klingenberg has no taxes. The yield of these clay 
pits pays the entire communal and school taxes, and 
there is enough besides to give every head of a family 
all the firewood needed, and over $30 in cash a year. 
Farther northward down the Main is Aschaffenburg, 
the river in its course from Miltenberg now flowing 
between the Spessart, and the eastern foot-hills of the 
Odenwald. There is a noted school of forestry at 
Aschaffenburg, its students getting their practical les- 
sons from the noble forests on both river banks. For 
nine centuries this town belonged to the warlike Arch- 
bishops of Mayence, and they becoming the Electors, 
began the extensive Schloss in 1605, which was their 
favorite residence until in 181-1, the town and district 
w^nt to Bavaria. Its four lofty towers rise over the 
town, and the fortress is now used for a library, mu- 
seum and gallery of paintings and engravings. In it 
is Gutenberg's original printed Bible. Here was lo- 
cated the old Abbey of Saints Peter and Alexander, 
dating from the eleventh century, the buildings now 
containing collections of antiquities. The Abbey 
Church, known as the Stiftskirche is well preserved, 
a spacious Romanesque basilica of the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries. In it are the tombs of various 



266 THE RHINE. 

electors of Mayence, and valuable frescoes by several 
artists, including Griinewald, who lived for some time 
here in the early sixteenth century. The chief monu- 
ment is that of Albert of Brandenberg, the Elector, 
which was cast in his lifetime and its construction 
personally superintended by him; he died in 1545. 
The last Elector, Frederick Charles Joseph, who died 
in 1802, is remembered by a large monument. High 
on the hill steeply rising from the Main, is King 
Ludwig's Pompeianum, which he erected in the 
early nineteenth century in reproduction of the ex- 
humed house of Castor and Pollux at Pompeii. It is 
adorned with frescoes, and a mosaic of Juno and Ju- 
piter on the dining room wall, presented by Pope 
Gregory XVI. At Dettingen, seven miles northwest- 
ward down the Main, was fought in 1743 the great bat- 
tle in which the combined English, Hanoverian, Hes- 
sian and Austrian troops, defeated the French, and 
then got control of this valley, and much of the May- 
ence Electorate. Farther northwest about eight miles, 
is another great battlefield, Hanau, where Napoleon, 
in October, 1813, retreating from Liepsig toward the 
Rhine, cut off and defeated the army of Allied Ba- 
varians, Austrians and Russians under Marshal Wrede. 
The town of Hanau now has thirty thousand people 
in a fertile vale, where the Walloons and Flemings 
banished from the Netherlands in the sixteenth cen- 
tury on account of their religious belief, established 
manufactures of weaving and gold and silver ware, 
which still flourish in the hands of their descendants. 



FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN. 267 



FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN. 

The Main, at Hanau, turns westward;, and flows a 
broader stream through a wider winding valley toward 
the great city of this region, Frankfort. About half- 
way between, is the manufacturing suburb of Offen- 
bach, where over fifty thousand people live along the 
river and the adjacent plain, practically the overflow 
of the greater city, farther westward. Above the 
place rises the old-time castle of the Counts of Isen- 
berg, and the many smoking chimneys of Offenbach 
attest the great iron and steel industries carried on. 
There are also extensive fancy goods shops, the mak- 
ing of these articles in which Offenbach rivals Paris, 
having been established by the French refugees who 
came here in great numbers at the close of the seven- 
teenth century. The town gradually dissolves into 
Sachsenhausen, another busy suburb across the river 
from Frankfort, a place originally assigned by Charle- 
magne as a residence for conquered Saxons, whence 
its name. This, too, has become a busy industrial 
hive from the overflow of the greater city, and be- 
tween them the Main flows in a grand course, curving 
gradually from the west to the southwest under a gal- 
axy of connecting bridges. 

When Frankfort actually began, no one seems to 
know, but it has become, especially in a financial way, 
one of the most important cities of Germany, having 



268 THE RHINE. 

with its immediate suburbs over three hundred thou- 
sand population. It seems that when the Franks 
crossed the Ehine, and came to the Main, they found 
a ford here, which, in course of time, became known 
as the "Ford of the Franks," and in the eighth cen- 
tury it is first mentioned in the chronicles, as the 
'Tfalz" or royal residence of "Franconofurd," with 
Charlemagne holding a diet of the dignitaries of the 
empire here in 794:. He and Louis the Pious, who suc- 
ceeded, built a new palace, completed in 822, nothing 
remaining of it, however, but an old corner tower, 
and the site being now occupied by the Saalhof, 
erected in the early eighteenth century. The city be- 
came the capital of the East Frankish empire, but 
gradually acquiring privileges, by the fourteenth cen- 
tury it had become independent, and in the sixteenth 
centur}^ was recognized officially as a "free imperial 
town" with its right to hold the famous autumn and 
Easter fairs, each continuing three weeks, which con- 
tributed so much to its prosperity. It also was made 
the place of choosing the German Emperors, beginning 
with Frederick Barbarossa in 1152, and the famous 
"Golden Bull" of Charles lY., in 1356, confirmed it as 
the electoral seat. In ISTapoleon^s time the Empire was 
dissolved, but in 1815, being revived as the German 
Confederation, Frankfort was made one of the four 
free cities and the place of meeting of the German 
Diet, while it was finally incorporated with Prussia 
in 1866, as a result of the defeat of Austria, whose 
cause in that short but decisive war, it espoused. 



FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN. 260 

This noted city occupies a situation of great na- 
tural beauty in the wide and fertile Main valley, the 
northern horizon being bounded by the soft outlines 
of the Taunus range of hills. The surrounding re- 
gion is a district of prolific orchards, vineyards and 
gardens, with much forest, and in the springtime their 
development is most luxuriant. In the olden time the 
city formed with its line of fortifications (now, how- 
ever removed) an irregular pentagon, having its long- 
est side on the curving northern river bank. It scrup- 
ulously treasures to-day two great memories of the 
older town. In the street called Grosse Hirschgraben, 
on the western side is the modest house in which the 
poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born, x\ugust 28, 
1749, and spent his boyhood. This house was bought, 
restored to its original condition and made a museum. 
Various Goethe relics are kept, also the picture gal- 
lery of his father, and reminiscences of both parents. 
His puppet theatre is preserved, and there is also a 
library of German classical literature with Goethe's 
works as its nucleus, the whole exceeding twenty 
thousand volumes. When Goethe died, in 1832, a 
movement began to erect his monument, which was 
done twelve years later, a fine work on the Goethe 
Platz, adjoining the old centre of the city, the Ross 
Market. 

The other Frankfort memory is of the origin of the 
famous Rothschild family, of which the city is still 
the headquarters. The Jews were always an impor- 
tant part of the population, and they now number 



270 THE RHINE. 

fully twenty-five thousand in Frankfort. In the east- 
ern part of the older town is the Borne Platz not far 
from the river, having upon it a fine new synagogue 
built in 1881. From this square the Borne Strasse di- 
verges northwestward, terminating at the Zeil, the 
business centre. This Borne Strasse was originally 
the Judengasse, or Jews' Quarter, so established in 
the middle ages, and down to 1806 it was closed every 
evening and all day on Sundays and holidays, the 
-gates being locked so that no Jew could go out into the 
town under heavy penalty. When the Napoleon 
regime came these restrictions were removed. The 
street originally had small and dingy houses, but all 
have been removed but one, No. 26, where the Eoths- 
child family originated, the street name being 
changed. In this house lived Anselm Moses Bauer, 
a Jewish merchant in a small way, and his son Mayer 
Anselm was born in 1743. His father wished him to 
become a rabbi, but he preferred business, and began 
as a money lender at the sign of the "Eed Shield" 
(Rothschild) in this house. He amassed great wealth 
in those troublous times, and became the agent of the 
Elector William of Hesse Cassel in 1801. When the 
French forced William to flee, he entrusted his treas- 
ures to the care of Rothschild, who buried them in his 
garden, and selling them as favorable opportunities 
offered, was able to return the Elector afterward, 
their full value and five per cent, interest. He estab- 
lished banking houses in the great European capitals, 
of which London became the most prominent, and 



FRANKFORT ON THE MAJN. 271 

when he dicnl, in 1812, left five sons and five dangh- 
ters. By eonniuiniiy ol' interest, and intermarriage, 
the family amassed enormous wealth. They became 
the great provider of funds for Enghmd and her Con- 
tinental allies in the wars against Napoleon^ the fam- 
ily being always confident of his ultimate downfall, 
and their successful prognostication brought them 
vast profits. The fourth generation is now directing 
the affairs of this great financial and business com- 
bination. 

The visitor generally arrives in Frankfort at the 
Central Kail way Station, one of the most spacious 
and magnificent in Europe, which cost nearly $9,000,- 
000, and is richly adorned. From it the impressive 
Kaiser Strasse leads dir.ectly to the centre of the old 
town, the Ross Markt, or the "Horse Market." This 
public square has to the north, the Goethe Platz, with 
his monument, already referred to, and to the north- 
east, the Schiller Platz, with a bronze statue of 
that great author. Fine buildings front upon the 
Ross Markt and adjoining squares, and in the Markt 
is the great monument to Gutenberg, the inventor of 
printing, of which Frankfort is very proud. Upon a 
spacious sandsloiu* [xulcstal is a splendid group, hav- 
ing in the (HMitre Gutenberg holding the types, and on 
either hand his j)i'inter companions, l\ist and Schoffer. 
Upon the frieze are portraits of fourteen famous early 
printers in dilferent parts of the world, while four 
niches dis})lay the arms of the four cities where type 
printing was earliest done — Mayence, Frankfort, 



272 THE RHINE. 

Strassburg and Venice. Emblematic figures around 
the base depict the use of printing in Theology, 
Poetr}^ Science and Industr3^ From the Schiller 
Platz stretches eastward the broad and handsome 
Zeil, the great business highway of the city, bordered 
by attractive shops, and having upon its northern side 
the fine new postoffice building. This is adorned 
by sculptures and has in the court a massive monu- 
ment to Emperor William I. This street is prolonged 
eastward as the New Zeil, and ultimately reaches the 
spacious Zoological Garden on the eastern side of 
Frankfort, with its galaxy of promenades and inter- 
esting collections. 

The older town is in the region stretching south- 
ward from the Zeil to the river, with the Jewish 
Quarter on its eastern verge. Here, near the river, is 
the famous Eomerberg, the centre of the old town, 
and its original market place, which in those days no 
Jew was permitted at any time to enter. In the centre 
rises the Justitia fountain of the sixteenth century, 
surmounted by a statue of Justice. Goethe has de- 
scribed the popular rejoicings in this square when 
an Emperor was elected, and told how the fountain on 
that occasion of high festivity, would be run for over 
an hour with ample libations of red and white wines. 
West of the square is the Eomer, a group of twelve 
houses forming a block, several of which have been 
restored with modern facades and gables in reproduc- 
tion of the older Gothic styles. Some of these build- 
ings were the homes of the Patrician clubs then rul- 



FRANKFORT ON THE AL\IN. 273 

ing German politics, and two of them, the Eomer 
Haus and the Golden Swan, were in 1405 made the 
Town Hall. Here is the Kaisersaal fronting on the 
Eomerberg, constructed in the late fourteenth cen- 
tury', where the newly chosen Emperor dined with the 
electors, and afterward showed himself on the balcony 
to the populace in the square. It is adorned with 
portraits of the emperors, the finest being of Charle- 
magne and Frederick Barbarossa. Adjoining is the 
Wahlzimmer, or "election room"' where the electors 
met to deliberate prior to their formal vote for the 
new emperor. The ancient Xicolaikirche of the thir- 
teenth century, having only one aisle, adjoins the 
Eomerberg on the south, and down near the river is 
the old Gate of the Fahr-Thor, with the Saalhof ad- 
jacent, standing where Charlemagne had his imperial 
palace in the early days of Frankfort. Eastward from 
the Eomerberg, the busy Markt street leads to the 
Dom, also in an open square. 

The Dom, or Cathedral of St. Bartholomew, is the 
oldest church in the city, founded in the ninth, but 
mainly constructed in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries, while the great tower was not completed 
until recentlv, the desis^ns for it, made when it was 
partially built in the fifteenth century, having been 
lost but since accidentally discovered. This tower 
rises over three hundred feet, being crowned by an 
octagonal cupola surmounted by a spire. Various 
frescoes in the church represent the life of St. Bar- 
tholomew, scenes in Frankfort history, and events 

i8 



274 THE RHINE. 

concerning the Imperial elections. In connection with 
the Golden Bull of Charles TV., the "election chapel" 
or Wahlkapelle, was constructed in the fourteenth 
century, the formal election taking place within it. 
At the entrance is the monument of the German 
King Giinther of Schwarzburg, who died in 1349, hav- 
ing taken refuge in Frankfort from his rival Charles 
ly. It was the custom to solemnize the coronation of 
the newly elected Emperor at the altar beneath the 
crossing of transepts and nave, the ceremony being 
conducted by the Elector of Mayence. Then a formal 
procession escorted the new emperor in state from the 
Cathedral to the Romer. Adjacent to the Cathedral 
is the old Leinwandhaus or Drapers' Hall, of the early 
fourteenth century, which was restored recently, and 
a large, modern building added, these now containing 
the interesting Frankfort Municipal Museum, with 
many valuable relics, including the "Golden Bull." 
East of the Cathedral, the highway known as the 
Fahrgasse, bordered with picturesque old houses, runs 
from the Zeil to the river, crossing the Main on the 
Old Bridge, built of red sandstone. This bridge 
is mentioned as early as the thirteenth century, but 
has been repeatedly injured by floods and as often re- 
stored. In the centre is a modern statue of Charle- 
magne, and near by an ancient iron cross bearing the 
Saviour's figure, and surmounted by a quaint cock, 
the tradition being that the architect made a league 
with Satan to permit the building of the bridge, on 
condition that the first living being crossing it should 



FRANKFORT ON THE MAIN. 275 

be sacrificed to him. The unfortunate victim hap- 
pened to be a venturesome cock, the architect thus 
outwitting the Evil one. The spacious quay, extend- 
ing along the northern river bank and flanked by 
lofty buildings, is called the Schone AussicM, or the 
"Beautiful Prospect," having a fine outlook across the 
Main and the region beyond. 

There are many new and attractive buildings in 
Frankfort. The splendid and spacious Opera House, 
opened in 1880, is highly decorated, and has opposite 
a fine statue of Emperor William I. There is an elab- 
orate Exchange, finished about the same time, and 
containing a Commercial Museum. The Library, re- 
cently enlarged, and adorned by statues of prominent 
townsmen and celebrities, has over two hundred and 
twenty thousand volumes. There is also an extensive 
Museum of Art and Industry. Across the river in 
Sachsenhausen, is the great gallery founded and en- 
dowed by Stadel, who died in 1816, the Stadel Art 
Institute. With his valuable collection as a nucleus, 
there have been gathered here a Museum and Galler- 
ies of Art, which in connection with the Art School, 
attended by over two hundred students, are regarded 
as giving Frankfort its high rank in the artistic world. 
The building of gray sandstone is large and impos- 
ing. Fine promenades, embellished with statuary, 
now replace the ancient walls of Frankfort, but sev- 
eral of the old-time gates are retained, the finest being 
the Eschenheimer Thurm, a circular towered gateway 
of the early fifteenth century. 



276 THE RHINE. 



THE TAUiSTUS. 

On the southwestern edge of the old town of 
Frankfort is the ancient Tannns Gate, and beyond 
it the Taunns Strasse, which originally led ont into 
the country to the westward, where the foothills of the 
Taunus slope down toward the Main. The whole re- 
gion north of the Main, as far as the next northern 
Ehine tributary, the Lahn, and westward to the Rhine, 
is a hill country known as the Taunus. It is part of 
a great ridge of low wooded mountains crossing Ger- 
many from northeast toward the southwest and ex- 
tending into France. The Main coming up from the 
south is diverted westward by it, to fall into the Ehine, 
and then the Rhine itself turns abruptly westward 
along the base of the ridge for twenty miles, until it 
turns northwest again and breaks through by the mag- 
nificent gorge, beginning at Bingen, which has made 
the great river so renowned in scenery and story. 
The Taunus is built up of rocks of graywacke and 
slates, the hills being covered by forests, mainly of 
pines and beeches, and rising into the highest sum- 
mits about fifteen miles northwest of Frankfort, of 
which the chief is the Great Feldberg, nearly twenty- 
nine hundred feet high. The top of this hill is a flat, 
grassy plateau, giving an admirable view over billowy 
forest-clad hills in almost every direction, and having 
deposited on top a block of quartz called the Brun- 



THE TAUNUS. 277 

hildenbett, ten Toot higli and Ihirty-Hve I'eet broad, 
which has boon mentioned in historical chronicles for 
over a thousand years. There are inns up there, and 
it is surrounded bv various lower summits, one to the 
southeast, the Altkdnig being enclosed by a double 
girdle of loose stones, an ancient (xerman fort ante- 
dating the Roman occupation. The soutlieastern de- 
clivities of these Taunus hills are marked all alon*: 
by the issuance of mineral springs, among the most 
famous being Homburg, Soden and Wiesbaden, while 
farther north and east on the other side of the range 
are Ems and Xauheim. The lower slopes toward the 
Ehine are also covered with vineyards, producing the 
most famous Rhine wines. 

Homburg, while noted, has not much to show be- 
yond its springs and their appurtenances, the Cur- 
haus, Kaiser Wilhelm Bad and Cur-Rark which are 
made very attractive. It is about eleven miles nearly 
northward from Frankfort in a most picturesque sit- 
uation, and for a long time was the residence of the 
Landgraves of Hesse Homburg, a line of the Hesse 
family that became extinct in 18GG. The springs 
are chalybeate and saline, prescribed for digestive dis- 
orders, the chief being the Elisabethbrunnen, its 
waters also ex})orted. There are several others, their 
waters used for bathing as well as for drinking. The 
Schloss, now a royal residence, rises on the western 
edge of the town, its great relic being the white tower 
nearly two hundred feet high, built in the fourteenth 
century. Xorthwest of Hombu^-g, in a formidable 



278 THE RHINE. 

position, high among the hills, is the Saalberg, one 
of the ancient forts of the Pfahlgraben, erected by the 
Eomans to protect the line of the Ehine against in- 
vasions by the barbarous Teutonic tribes. It is at 
nearly fourteen hundred feet elevation, a series of de- 
fensive works covering about eight acres, constructed 
in the first century, and the largest fortification of 
the whole line which stretched from the Black Forest 
up to the Lahn. Germanicus, the son of Drusus, is 
thought to have enlarged and strengthened it. This 
camp was excavated and disclosed to scientific study 
by the distinguished archaeologist. Professor Momm- 
sen, who died in November, 1903, and the Emperor 
William, in memory, has had his bust placed in the 
Saalberg. 

Southwest from Homburg, is the old Schloss Cron- 
berg on an orchard and chestnut-covered hill, its high 
tower seen from afar. This is a thirteenth century 
castle, still partly occupied, and is a great resort for 
artists. To the northwestward on a somewhat higher 
hill are the ruins of Burg Falkenstein, whence origin- 
ally came the proud and powerful Archbishop Kuno 
of Treves. To the westward is 3^et another attractive 
ruined castle, Konigstein, a stronghold quarreled for 
as early as the thirteenth century, and destroyed by 
the French in 1796. All these stately castles are now 
attended by villages of rural houses, which are the 
popular out-of-town summer resorts of the Frankfort 
people. Soden is three miles south of Konigstein, 
and ten miles from Frankfort, having twenty-four 



MAYENCE AND ITS GLORIES. 279 

mineral springs containing iron, salt and carbonic acid 
gas, which attract many patients afflicted by nervous 
and other disorders. Down by the river Main, five 
miles below Frankfort, is Hochst, which also was one 
of the Eoman protective frontier fortresses, after- 
ward a stronghold of the Electors of Mayence, and 
now a busy manufacturing town. From the lowlands 
near the river, in going westward, a fine view to the 
northward is given of the Taunus hills, and about sev- 
enteen miles from Frankfort are the noted vineyards 
of Hochheim. Here is made the famous "sparkling 
Hock,'' the town giving all that class of wines its 
name, the highest prized being the product of the 
vineyards of the old Domdechanei, or the "deanery." 
Three miles farther westward the Main joins the 
Ehine, at the great fortress of Mayence. 

MAYENCE AND ITS GLORIES. 

Arms, tradition, religion and literature all combine 
to make the fame of Mayence. It is one of the most 
powerful fortresses guarding the Ehine, owing to its 
strategic position at the junction of the rivers and so 
near the entrance to the gorge where the historic river 
breaks its passage through the Taunus hills. Its 
traditions go back to the Celtic days anterior to the 
Eoman domination. They had a defensive camp here 
and the Eomans foimd them before the Christian era, 
calling the place after the tribe that liold it, Mogon- 
tiacum. Drusus, the son-in-law of Augustus, anterior 



280 THE RHINE. 

to the birth of Christ established his fortified camp 
on the table land above the river, where is 
now the citadel. There came colonists and 
traders, and it was made the capital of Ger- 
mania Superior, and the Romans built the orig- 
inal bridge across the Ehine. Then the Ro- 
mans weakened, the Teutons came, and Christianity 
was preached throughout this region in the fourth 
century, and a bishopric was founded. In the early 
eighth century St. Boniface came from England, the 
great missionary to Germany, passing through Ba- 
varia, Saxony, Friesland and Hesse, baptizing the peo- 
ple and consecrating churches in the great religious 
revival then overspreading central Europe, and par- 
ticularly the regions adjacent to the Rhine. He was 
first known as Winfred, but in recognition of his la- 
bors he was made a Bishop, and took the name of 
Boniface. The Pope subsequently advanced him to 
the primacy of Germany, and in 745 he was created 
Archbishop of Mayence, serving until killed while on 
a missionary journey to the heathen in Friesland in 
755. St. Boniface was the son of a wheelwright, and 
he assumed a pair of wheels as his armorial bearing, 
which still exist in the arms of Mayence. He began 
the long line of Archbishops and Electors ruling the 
city and its dependencies, who advanced to the proud 
distinction of crowning the successive Emperors as 
the primates of Germany. Then in the thirteenth 
century Mayence led in the formation of the power- 
ful "League of the Rhenish Towns," a combination of 



iMAYKNCE AND JTIS GLORIES. ;381 

over a hundred tuwiis on and near I lie Khinc, ir<iiii 
Basle to Bremen, which long controlled the commerce 
of central Europe, rising to such prosperity that May- 
ence, the head of the League was called the "Golden 
Mainz/' Then came the invention of printing by Gu- 
tenberg, a native of Mayence, in the middle of the 
fifteenth century, and the city further advanced, its 
great University being founded in l-i'iT. But too 
much prosperity aroused enmities. Adolph of Nas- 
sau, Albert of Brandenburg, (Uistavus Adolphus, and 
finally the French, in 1G44 and again in 1088, and 
1792, captured and pillaged it, the fortress being 
made stronger after each invasion, to be only subse- 
quently captured by superior warlike methods. Finally 
the archbishopric was secularized and shorn of its 
great political power, Mayence went to Hesse, and now 
Germany has made it a stronger fortress than ever, 
as one of the impregnable guardians of the Rhine. 

The great possession of Mayence is the Cathedral 
of St. Martin, prominent in red sandstone in the 
Market Place, the centre of the old town. Various 
churches were erected on its site, beginning in the 
fourth century, and were successively burnt. Finally 
a Romanesque structure, with a vaulted roof, was 
completed, and there are records of its serving as a 
defensive fortress in struggles between the Archbishop 
and the citizens in the twelfth century. It was sub- 
sequently enlarged and extended, so that it represents 
the architecture of several centuries. The French, in 
Napoleon's time, used it for a barracks and magazine, 



282 THE RHINE. 

but in 1844 it was restored to its sacred calling. Its 
imposing, yet strange-looking, towers rise at either 
end; its brazen doors at the main entrance are among 
the oldest in German}^, having been made in the tenth 
centur}^; its western choir bears an equestrian statue 
of St. Martin. The interior is about three hundred 
and seventy feet long, and ninety feet high, the vault- 
ing borne by fifty-six slender pillars, and there are 
admirable frescoes, and an array of tombs covering 
six centuries. Among those to whom monuments 
are erected are the warlike x\lbert of Brandenberg, 
who was Elector of Mayence and Archbishop of Mag- 
deburg; Elector Conrad III. of Daun; Elector Peter 
of Aspelt, having alongside him the two Emperors, 
Henry VII. and Lewis of Bavaria, and also King John 
of Bohemia, all of whom he crowned; Albert of Sax- 
ony; Elector Diether of Isenburg; and Fastrada the 
third wife of Charlemagne. In the adjacent cloisters 
is the famous monument erected by the ladies of 
Mayence in 1842 to the memory of Count Heinrich 
of Meissen, who died in 1318. It represents a female 
figure decorating a coffin with a wreath, and thus de- 
picts the gallant knight by his surname of the Frau- 
enlob, meaning "women^s praise.^' Xear by is the older 
tombstone which was a copy of the original placed 
there at the time of his burial. This gallant knight 
was described as "the pious minstrel of the Holy Vir- 
gin and of female virtue," and his life suggested to 
Wagner one of his noblest operatic characters. It is 
said this same knight's career led Martin Luther to 



MAYENCE AND ITS GLORIES. 283 

indite a verse, which Thackeray freely translated into 
the well-known couplet : 

"Who loves not wine, women and song 
He is a fool, his whole life long." 

The Gutenberg Platz is near the Cathedral, and 
here is Thorwaldsen's statue of Gutenberg, commem- 
orating the invention of printing, and erected in 1837. 
Johann zum Gensfleisch, who was surnamed Guten- 
berg, was a native of Mayence, and his original print- 
ing office, with those of his assistants, Johann Fust 
and Peter Schoffer, still exist in the old town, the an- 
cient buildings marked by tablets. Gutenberg's first 
attempts at printing with movable types were made 
about the middle of the fifteenth century, the earliest 
book being his famous forty-two line Bible, printed in 
1450-55. The pedestal of the statue has appropriate 
reliefs and the Latin inscription is thus translated : 
"The art which was hidden from Greeks and Latins, 
? German's clever genius hammered out; now all the 
wisdom of ancients and moderns, is not for them alone 
but for all people." An unfortunate quarrel between 
Gutenberg and Fust resulted in a lawsuit by which 
Fust got possession of the printing office, after 1455, 
and with Schoffer continued the work. Gutenberg 
then left Mayence for Eltville farther down the Rhine, 
where he died a few years later. 

Mayence has about eighty thousand people and a 
large garrison. The fortress covers a far-spreading 
range of outlying works on the surrounding eminences, 



284 THE RHINE. 

commanding every approach^ and presenting an array 
of great mounds on the elevated heights, sodded with 
the greenest grass and having flowerbeds blooming 
npon them. The citadel, which is a relic of the older 
works, has in its corner, the Drusus Tower, or Eigel- 
stein, a circular mass of concrete about forty feet 
high, which tradition describes as having been built by 
the Eomans as the crowning work of their ancient 
camp, in the year 9 B. C, in honor of Drusus, who 
was killed by falling from his horse. To the west- 
ward of the city is the cemetery, which was the origi- 
nal burial place for the Eoman legions and the ear- 
liest Christians, and beyond it stand a row of about 
sixty stone pillars, which are the remains of the Eo- 
man aqueduct by which Avater was then brought for 
six miles into the city from a copious spring in the 
Konigsborn, among the distant hills. There have 
been many Eoman and German antiquities found in 
and near Mayence, and these, with additions, making 
one of the richest collections in Germanv, are exhib- 
ited in the ancient and spacious red sandstone palace 
of the Electors down by the Ehine, an extensive 
square being behind it, now used as a drill ground. 
There are also here a gallery of paintings and a li- 
brary of nearly two hundred thousand volumes, with 
natural histor}^ exhibits, many coins and numerous 
relics of Gutenberg and the early history of printing. 
A broad Esplanade fronts the Ehine and a modern 
bridge spans the river where the old Eoman bridge 
formerly crossed. A fine new railway bridge, con- 



WIESBADEN AND NEIGHBORHOOD. 285 

structed for strategical as well as transportation pur- 
poses, and connecting all the German railways on both 
sides of the Rhine, was inaugurated by Emperor Wil- 
liam in Ma}^ 1904, with elaborate ceremonial. Here 
are also relics of the early fortifications — the Iron 
Tower and the Wooden Tower of mediaeval times, — 
and near the former the quaint thirteenth century 
Church of the Holy Ghost which has been converted 
into a restaurant. 

WIESBADEX AXD ITS NEIGHBORHOOD. 

In a lovely valley enclosed by the southwestern foot- 
hills of the Taunus, a short distance north of May- 
ence, and a couple of miles from the Ehine, is the fa- 
mous watering place of Wiesbaden. It rivals Baden- 
Baden as the most fashionable of the German Spas, 
and draws many more visitors, for with a regular pop- 
ulation of over eighty thousand, it will, in the season, 
attract over a hundred thousand more. The Romans 
found these springs, and made the place one of their 
line of Rhine defences as the Aquae Mattiacorum. 
Afterward the name, which Pliny had written in de- 
scribing the warm springs, became gradually changed 
in the Prankish era, to Wisibada, and since the thir- 
teenth century tlie city has been the capital of the 
Counts and afterward of the Dukes of Xassau. Its 
greatest growth has been since the close of the eigh- 
teenth century, and it was famous as a gambling re- 
sort until the tables were suppressed after the Franco- 



286 THE RHINE. 

German war. It has had a magnificent development 
of the pleasure gardens, splendid halls, grand hotels, 
and water establishments adjacent to a great spa, 
the buildings being mostly of a light color, so that the 
bright and beautiful aggregation, nestling in the 
mountain basin, garnished with the green environ- 
ment of vineyards and orchards, has been described 
by a visitor as looking "for all the world like a hard 
boiled egg in a bowl of lettuce." Here come the gay 
and frivolous to while away the fashionable season, 
and also the rheumatic and gouty, to take the 
"course," or prescribed sojourn of about three weeks 
for treatment, by drinking the waters or bathing. 
As they are usually more or less cripples, the conta- 
gion soon becomes infectious, and it is not long before 
even the robust sojourner may acquire all uncon- 
sciously what is known as the "Wiesbaden limp." 
We are told that kings, princes and other great peo- 
ple who have inherited their gout came here to get 
rid of it, while humbler folk with social ambitions 
sometimes came really in quest of it. The waters 
that are imbibed are described as "well-salted fluids 
at a temperature not quite hot enough to scald the 
tongue." 

There are spacious public squares and a park for 
the visitors; and the great tree-lined street, the Kai- 
ser-Wilhelm Strasse, stretches through the town 
and past the halls and gardens as the chief highway. 
There are excellent statues of Emperors William I. 
and Frederick III., and opening from the street is 



WIESBADEN AND NEIGHBORHOOD. 287 

the spacious Cursaal Platz, with flower-beds and foun- 
tains, flanked by impressive Doric Colonnades. Across 
this square rises the spacious Curhaus, the chief resort 
of the visitors, its Ionic portico also flanked by col- 
onnades. Within are grand halls for the concerts and 
balls, and behind spreads the great Cur-Park, with a 
pleasant lake, over which plays a fountain having a 
jet rising one hundred feet. Beyond, extend hand- 
some streets through the residential quarter. Toward 
the north from this aggregation of attractive buildings 
and gardens, is the Trinkhalle, where the visitors 
gather to drink the waters as early as six o'clock in 
the morning. Here, within a small area, rise flfteen 
warm springs, whose waters at a temperature of 
about 156° are combined in the Kochbrunnen, yield- 
ing hourly about five thousand gallons. These waters 
contain over eight per cent, of solid matter, mostly 
chloride of sodium. They are the drinking waters, 
and there are also twenty-three other springs used 
for bathing. In the neighborhood are remains of the 
"heathen's wall," a ponderous line of Eoman masonry, 
which was part of the early fortifications. The pub- 
lic buildings of Wiesbaden are all modern, and among 
them is an interesting Museum and Art Gallery, 
with a Library of one hundred and twenty thousand 
volumes, contained in the famous palace of the Crown 
Prince. The beautiful vale of the N"erothal, extend- 
ing to the northwest into the Taunus hills, is the 
chief suburban resort, the wooded Neroberg rising 
above it, giving a charming outlook southward toward 



288 THE RHINE. 

Mayence and the Rhine valley. Here is the richly 
decorated Greek Chapel erected as a mausoleum for the 
Russian Duchess Elisabeth Michailowna, who died in 
1845, a great admirer of Wiesbaden. Seven miles 
westward from Wiesbaden is the spa of Schlengenbad 
in a pleasant valley, with eight mineral springs, ef- 
fective in skin diseases and nervous affections. Thir- 
teen miles to the northwest of Wiesbaden in the pretty 
green valley of the Aar, is Schwalbach, which was the 
fashionable watering place of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, until Wiesbaden eclipsed it. 
This is still a popular medicinal spa, the two chief 
springs, Stahlbrunnen and Weinbrunnen, being 
strongly impregnated with iron and carbonic acid gas, 
while there are other bathing springs. There is a 
handsome Cursaal and attractive suburbs ; and up the 
Aar, farther within the recesses of the Taunus range, 
are the picturesque ruins of Burg Hohenstein, a castle 
destroyed in 1657. From Wiesbaden, grand avenues 
lined by double rows of horse chestnut trees, extend 
three miles southward to the Rhine, where the pleas- 
ant town of Biebrich is its port upon the river bank, 
a short distance below Mayence. 

THE RHEINGAU. 

Our noble river Rhine below Mayence makes a 
grand sweeping bend from the north around to the 
west, flowing in that direction nearly twenty miles 
to Bingen. The great barrier of the Taunus stands up 



THE RHEINGAU. 289 

high in front, and thus diverts the river along the 
verge of the broad valley extending southward from 
the foothills. The dull red waters of the Main, com- 
ing out of the sandstone hills, are on the outer side 
of the curve, and keep quite in contrast with the clear 
green current of the Ehine. Then at Bingen the 
]!^ahe comes in, with a brownish hue, and the three do 
not thoroughly commingle until they get whirled 
together some distance below, at the weird pool of the 
Lurlei. Upon the outer rim of the great curve north 
of Mayence the mills and park of Biebrich are spread 
along the shore, and the avenues of chestnuts can be 
seen stretching inland. Within the park is the Moos- 
burg, a reproduction in miniature of a mediaeval cas- 
tle, having some old monuments brought from the 
ancient Abbey of Eberbach, farther down the river. 
This occupies the site of the Imperial Chateau of 
Biburk, where lived Charlemagne's descendants a 
thousand years ago, the name being reproduced 
without much change in the present title of the vil- 
lage. The river broadens in front and has several 
islands, upon one of which Charlemagne's son, Louis 
the Pious, died in 840. In those days this region was 
called Nasonga, whence is derived the present name of 
Nassau. The Nassau Dukes long had their summer 
residence here, and for centuries Biebrich has been 
famous for its gardens and avenues of stately chest- 
nuts. 

As the river extends on its western (in fact rather 
southwestern) course, we come to the famous region 
19 



290 THE RHINE. 

of the Rheingau. For several miles back from the 
northern bank is a most fertile and beautiful district 
gradually rising to the bordering heights of the dis- 
tant horizon. This tract, about five miles wide and 
twelve miles long is the Eheingau, noted as the pro- 
ducer of some of the most celebrated and costly wines 
in the world. This advantage comes from its favor- 
able position on the northern side of the river, slop- 
ing down toward the sun, whose rays can enrich the 
vineyards throughout the whole day. It was of this 
district and the adjacent regions that Longfellow 
makes Father Claus sing: 

"At Bacharacli on the Rhine, 
At Hockheim on the Main, 
And at Wiirzburg on the Stein, 
Grow the three best kinds of wine." 

The Archbishops of Mayence loved these wines, and 
at one time owned most of the vineyards. The whole 
Eheingau was their priceless possession, and they en- 
closed it, in order to keep out intruders, with an im- 
penetrable belt of trees and undergrowth, over a hun- 
dred feet wide, known as the Gebiick. This pro- 
tected the blessed vineyards from spoliation, and we 
are told that once when the Pope reproved the lords 
and canons of Mayence for their luxurious living, the 
gay answer was returned, that : "We have more wine 
than is needed for the Mass, but hardly enough to 
turn our mills with." Islands are dotted along the 
Rhine in front, and vineyards cling to all the favored 



THE RHEINGAU. 291 

slopes of these precious hillsides, many being carefully 
terraced so as to retain every particle of the valuable 
soil. We pass Eltville with its lofty watch tower, part 
of the old castle of the German Emperors, where Giin- 
ther of Schwarzburg in the fourteenth century, when 
hard pressed by his opponent Charles IV., resigned 
the imperial dignity. This was the ancient Altavilla, 
and then the capital of the Eheingau. The old watch- 
tower dates from 1330, and on one of the houses is a 
record of the fact that Gutenberg, upon leaving May- 
ence, aided in establishing a printing press in 1466. 
In the interior, a little way up a pleasant brook, is 
Kiedrich amid vine-clad hills, which has among them 
the famous vineyard of the Grafenberg, the old twelfth 
century castle of Scheafenstein crowning the heights 
with its picturesque remnant. 

A short distance westward on the river shore is an- 
cient Erbach and just beyond, Hattenheim, with two 
long, narrow islands stretched in front of them. A 
road a little way from the river bank and a railway 
connect them. Near this road about half-way be- 
tween is a well, and this called the Marcobrunnen — 
the "boundary well," gives the name to the adjacent 
vineyards of the Count Schonborn, yielding the noted 
Marcobrunner. The little Kissell brook comes out 
to the Rhine at Erbach, from among the hills to the 
northwest, and near it some two miles northward of 
Hattenheim was the old Cistercian Abbey of Eberbach, 
founded in the twelfth century, and owing its ex- 
istence as an abbey to the patronage given by St. 



292 THE RHINE. 

Bernard of Clairvaux in that era. This abbey existed 
until 1803, and is now a House of Correction, and a 
wine factory. The buildings are well preserved, and 
the extensive vaults beneath them are wine cellars, 
while the Eefectory is occupied by wine-presses. Here 
is held one of the great wine auctions of the Ehein- 
gau every spring, attracting dealers from far and near. 
The monks of Eberbach from the beginning of their 
abbey, carefully cultivated their vineyard on the hill 
sloping down to the brook, and above it rises the Bos, 
nine hundred feet high with a noble prospect over the 
vineyard and the broad and fertile region out to and 
far beyond the Ehine. This is the celebrated vineyard 
of the Steinberg, only sixty acres in extent, where the 
vines are nurtured with the greatest care, and their 
product is famed all over the world. It is now gov- 
ernment property. To the westward of Hattenheim is 
Oestrich, where came the newly chosen Archbishops 
of Mayence, to confirm the privileges of the Ehein- 
gau, and receive the pledges of the popular fealty. 
Just beyond are Mittelheim and Winkel, on the river 
shore, two villages forming one long road and having 
many memories of Goethe, who once solemnly re- 
corded that the extended highway was "very trying to 
the patience.'^ Across the Ehine, some distance be- 
yond the southern bank, originally stood Charle- 
magne's noted castle of Ingelheim, described as of 
great magnificence by the mediaeval chroniclers, but 
of which few traces now remain. This is claimed by 
some as the great monarch's birthplace. It was burnt 



THE RHEINGAU. 293 

in the thirteenth century, but afterward restored, 
though subsequently destroyed. Tlie red wines of 
Ingelheini are popular, but are overshadowed by the 
glories of the higher priced product of the Rheingau. 
In going along the Khine, the traveller is im- 
pressed with the great labor devoted to the develop- 
ment of the vineyards, and the serious difficulties that 
had to be overcome. The steepest hill slopes facing 
the sun, are here made enormously valuable, by being 
terraced for vine-growing, the soil sometimes being 
carried up in baskets, and stout walls built to hold it, 
while the cultivators have trouble to keep their foot- 
ing. Wherever in favorable locations, it is possible 
for human hands to hold on, or feet to find a resting 
place, the grape is cultivated. These are the Rhine's 
"vine-clad hills," and "fields which promise corn and 
wine," of which Byron sings. We are told that along 
this historic river, unlike the more favored southern 
latitudes where grape-ripening and wine-making are 
easy, the successful culture of the vine means hard 
work all the year, and that only exceptionally comes 
the full reward. Yet in this district, though less fa- 
vored by nature, the most generous wines are produced. 
The more southern wines excel in body and strength, 
but they lack the bountiful aroma given by the high- 
class Hhine wines. The struggle for existence which 
the vine has to fight on the Hhine, seems essential for 
tlie development of the peculiar flavor of tlie wine. 
To secure the highest attainable maturity of the fruit, 
the actual Rhine vintage is postponed until the grapes 



294 THE RHINE. 

almost begin to wither, and the white grapes on the 
sunny sides of the bunches exhibit a yellowish-brown 
instead of a green color. In the famous vineyards, the 
bunches are carefully sorted, the ripest being put 
aside and pressed by themselves. Even the individual 
bunches, in some places, are carefully examined and 
the best grapes only are cut out by scissors and used 
for the high-class wines. 

JOHANNISBERG AND RUDESHEIM. 

Just beyond the village of Winkel, a short distance 
northward from the river, rises conspicuously among 
the vineyards, the stately Schloss Johannisberg. This 
is one of the most famous estates of the Eheingau. 
Away back in the early centuries there was founded 
here a Benedictine monastery which ultimately with 
the remainder of the district came under control of 
the Archbishops of Mayence. From them it went to 
the Prince-Abbots of Fulda, who built the extensive 
chateau controlled successively by the Princes of Or- 
ange, by Napoleon who gave it to Marshal Keller- 
mann, and by the Austrian Emperor who conferred it 
upon the Prince of Metternich, his descendants still 
owning it. Johannisberger is regarded as the king 
among German wines. The first vines are reported 
to have been planted here about 1009, by Euthard, 
the Archbishop of Mayence. During the Thirty Years' 
War, the vineyard was destroyed, but the Abbot of 
Fulda, when he built the chateau, replanted it. This 



JOHANNISBERG AND RUDESHEIM. 295 

famous vineyard covers about fifty-five acres, and is 
most carefully cultivated, the grapes being so precious 
that even those falling are carefully picked off the 
ground. In good years, the product yields an income 
of about $35,000. Very little of this celebrated wine 
ever reaches the ordinary public, as it is reserved for 
the multi-millionaires and the royalties. The first 
quality is only obtained occasionall}^, in the best sea- 
sons; the grapes are then selected with the utmost 
care from the ripest bunches ; and the yield is limited. 
The various qualities of this wine are sold in the casii 
at the Schloss, by public sale. The wine is distin- 
guished for its delicacy of flavor and bouquet, rather 
than for strength. There are other wines of the 
neighborhood sold under the name of Johannisberger, 
which though not of this vineyard, are highly es- 
teemed. The old Chapel of the monastery, originally 
consecrated in 1130, has been rebuilt and is exhibited 
to visitors. From the terrace of the chateau there is 
a grand view over the Ehine, including the distant 
ruins of Ingelheim. 

We are told that when the great Emperor Charle- 
magne lived in his castle at Ingelheim, and gazed at 
the magnificent prospect of the hills of the Rheingau, 
to the north and northwest across the river, he ob- 
served that the sun in springtime melted the snows 
on these heights sooner than elsewhere. Tliis was 
particularly the case with the hills at Rildesheim, 
where they came out toward the Rhine, thus narrow- 
ing the broader valley of the Rheingau to the eastward. 



296 THE RHINE. 

So he had the vines growing his most prized wines 
brought from Burgundy, and planted on this hill- 
slope. Thus began the celebrated vineyard of Riides- 
heim, its wines boasting the most venerable pedigree 
on the Ehine. The village is spread along the shore 
to the westward of Johannisberg, and back of the 
houses, rise the steep slopes clothed with the vine- 
yards, the chief being the Hinterhaus, the Eottland, 
and the Berg, spreading toward the westward. The 
river beyond makes a sharp right-angled bend to the 
north, thus breaking into the great gorge through the 
ridge, and the semicircular eminence rising up and 
thus encircled by the river far below at its base, is the 
Niederwald. The steep heights rise about eleven hun- 
dred feet, and are clothed with forests of beech and 
oak, above the vineyards on the lower slopes, while on 
the top are an old view-tower and the German na- 
tional monument. From this elevation a superb out- 
look is had over the entire Rheingau, the Rhine and 
its bordering vineyards and villages, with Bingen op- 
posite almost beneath, and the islands nestling on the 
glinting surface, as the sun shines upon the waters. 
Riidesheim itself is a rather ancient village, displaying 
the Vordersberg near the market place, a fragment of 
a tower surviving the old castle, which was held by 
the Bromsers, a knightly line, whose monuments are 
in the old church, the family, however, becoming ex- 
tinct in the seventeenth century. Their Bromser- 
berg, a ponderous twelfth century castle, also survives 
with the memories of the brigandage then practiced 



JOHANNISBERG AND RUDESHEIM. 297 

by these gallant knights of Riidesheim, which caused 
the Archbishops of Ma3'ence to drive them out and oc- 
cupy the place, though afterward these princely 
prelates preferred to live at Ehrenfels. 

An inclined plane railway ascends the jSTiederwald, 
through the vineyards, to the great monument built 
at an elevation of seven hundred and forty feet above 
the Rhine and nearly one thousand feet above the 
sea. It faces Bingen on the opposite southern bank, 
and after the close of the Franco-German war, was 
constructed at a cost of over $270,000, to fitly com- 
memorate the founding of the new German empire, 
and was inaugurated in 1883 in the presence of the 
Emperor William I. This superb monument is in a 
commanding position, upon a projecting promontory, 
almost over the river, and was designed by Prof. 
Schilling, of Dresden. Upon a lofty base, rising 
nearly eighty feet, stands the noble statue of Ger- 
mania, seen from afar, with the imperial crown and 
the laurel-wreathed sword, as the emblems of the 
unity and strength of the Empire. The figure is 
thirty-three feet high. As the goddess thus guards 
the Rhine, the relief on the side of the pedestal facing 
the great river, is the "Wacht am Rhein." The text 
of the famous song is graven upon it, having on 
either hand allegorical figures of Peace and War, and 
above the portraits of Emperor William and the 
princes and generals of the Empire, with representa- 
tions of the troops from different provinces. Below 
are Rhenus and Mosella, the latter (the Moselle) being 



298 THE RHINE. 

now the guardian of the future frontier of the Empire 
to the westward. There are other reliefs on the sides, 
representing the departure of the armies for the war, 
and their victorious return. To the westward and on 
the most elevated part of the Mederwald heights, is 
the Eossel with an admirable prospect, exhibiting al- 
most at the visitor's feet, the Ehine rushing into the 
great gorge, and over beyond, Bingen and the lovely 
valley of the Nahe, stretching southward between the 
bordering hills, running off to the Donnersberg on 
the one side, and the timbered slopes of the Soonwald, 
on the other. Upon this superb height there has been 
constructed an artificial ruin, to add to the charms of 
the view. 

THE VALLEY OF THE NAHE. 

The result of the Franco-German war, was to re- 
move the German frontier from the Ehine far to the 
westward, along the line of the Moselle, with Metz as 
the great defensive fortress. The Taunus range of 
hills into which the Ehine breaks, by its sharp turn to 
the northward at Bingen, are continued far south- 
west and across the boundary into France. In fact 
the lands to the southward of this vast obstructive 
wall, exhibit in the Eheingau and successive fertile 
valleys all the characteristics of an ancient lake that 
has been drained by the Ehine breaking through the 
wall. The elevations of the Soonwald and other rocky 
forest covered plateaus stretch away to the southwest, 



THE VALLEY OF THE NAHE. 299 

and are drained by the Nahe and the Moselle, which 
cut deep and most picturesque gorges down into them. 
The Moselle is the larger river and is on their north- 
w^estern side while the ISTahe, much shorter, comes 
from the southwest and south, and drains their south- 
eastern slopes. Beyond the headwaters of the Nahe, 
the Saar traverses the ridge by a deep gorge cut across 
the elevated plateau at right angles, and enters the 
Moselle just above Treves. 

One of the finest points on the picturesque N'ahe is 
the ancient town of Oberstein, noted for its manufac- 
ture of agates. It occupies a strange position, being 
confined within narrow boundaries, and practically 
shut in toward the river, by high peaked "tors" and 
jagged cliffs, making the wildest rock scenery, their 
tops crowned with a couple of ruined castles of the 
old Barons of Oberstein, which were demolished by 
the French in the seventeenth century. The place has 
since been almost neglected, but it displays curious 
old wooden houses, and an ancient church on the 
hillside, said to have been built in the twelfth cen- 
tury by an Oberstein, doing all the labor personally, 
as a penance for fratricide. These jagged porphyry 
cliffs formerly produced the agates, which the people 
polished and sold, but they have become scarce, and 
are now brought from South America and the Indies, 
to be dressed by the grinding stones, which are worked 
by water wheels turned by the brooks running down 
the steep hills enclosing the Nahe. The visitor is 
chiefly impressed by the way the railroad has to run 



300 THE RHINE. 

into tunnels and over bridges and viaducts to get 
through the crooked gorge; and by the two rugged 
tors rising so steeply over the town. The old church 
is part way up one of them, and built into a cavity in 
the cliff, which was purposely hollowed out, the rock 
forming one side and part of the roof and entire floor, 
while the approach is by a stairway cut into the cliff. 
A tower is built on the summit of this church tor, from 
which there is a grand outlook, over the gorge of the 
Nahe. The castle, perched on the other tor, is a 
badly shattered ruin. For over twenty miles, the 
picturesque Nahe erratically wanders through this 
deep and winding fissure, displaying the finest scen- 
ery. Euined castles, ancient villages, crags, cliffs and 
steep hillsides with forest and bits of pasture are scat- 
tered along, and thus it comes to the grand ruins of 
the Castle of Dhaun, giving another glorious view 
over the valley from its high elevation. This castle 
was a twelfth century construction and a stronghold 
of the Eheingrafen, who then controlled the great 
river and its neighborhood. Over one of the doors is 
cut a relief, representing an ape giving an apple to a 
child, commemorating the carrying off by an ape of a 
child of one of these feudal chieftains, who, however, 
happily recovered his darling. 

Five miles below is Sobernheim, displaying queer 
bits of strange old German dwellings of the indescrib- 
able school of architecture and advanced stage of pic- 
turesque dilapidation which is the admiration of ar- 
tists. The Irish Bishop Disibodus came into this re- 



THE VALLEY OF THE NAHE. 301 

mote region to preach Christianity in the seventh 
century, and farther down the valley are the ruins 
of Disibodenberg, an abbey founded in his memory. 
The buildings were extensive, though little more than 
the foundations and a gable or two remain. Next 
rises ruined Bockelheim on an abrupt rock where 
Henry IV. was kept prisoner by his son, Henry V., 
in 1105, and the castle was well preserved until the 
French came along and destroyed it in 1688. Far- 
ther down is Miinster-am-Stein with salt-springs and 
baths, displaying along the valley, superb precipices 
of red porphyry, with a ruined castle, and all about 
exhibiting the ruin wrought by war and the elements. 
One magnificent rock rises four hundred and twenty 
feet sheer from the water, a titanic combination of 
cliffs, trees, wild shrubbery and water-courses, with its 
eagle's eyrie reared high toward heaven, and bearing 
there the once proud stronghold of Eheingrafenstein, 
built in the eleventh century, which the French de- 
stroyed at the same time as Bockelheim. Another 
grand peak, the Gans or the "goose" adjoins, from 
which there is a good view over the valley. Near by 
comes in the swift little brook, the Alsenz, through a 
tributary gorge cut into the hills toward the north- 
west, and at the junction seen across the winding 
river, from Eheingrafenstein, and high above the 
Munster, is the famous old castle of Ebernburg, which 
was the almost inaccessible eyrie of the rnubrifter or 
"robber-knight,'' Franz von Sickingen, who lived in 
the early sixteenth century. Here this roving free- 



302 THE RHINE. 

booter sheltered the reformers Melancthon, Hutten, 
and Bncer, while Hutten composed various religious 
works in the castle. The bold Franz, when he felt 
like it, did not hesitate to attack and besiege Mayence 
and Treves, and defy their proud prelates, and he was 
able always to hold out even against the German Em- 
peror, The early reformers who were sadly persecuted, 
were his friends, and they always knew they could find 
an asylum in this remote wilderness, when chased 
away from the Ehine. When the French destroyed 
almost everything else in this region in 1688-89, they 
additionally fortified and held this castle, but some 
time later it was dismantled. Out of the ruins rises 
a curious pinnacle-topped structure now used for an 
inn, and there is a gorgeous prospect all about. A 
recent monument commemorates Franz and Hutten. 
The reinforced Nahe, having received the waters of 
the Alsenz, flows northward a short distance through 
its gorge, passing extensive salt-works on the way, 
to Kreuznach, where there are more springs and 
baths, and a popular bathing establishment, with the 
adjunct Curhaus and other buildings. It is a very 
ancient place, and the river, flowing under several 
bridges separates the old from the new town, this 
TsTeustadt itself being quite ancient. In the Altstadt 
are shown remains of the Roman fortifications in the 
"Heathen's Wall," and there is a display in the Mu- 
seum of various antiquities. The salt springs attract 
many visitors, and the Elisabeth-Quelle, the chief, 
contains also bromide and iodine and rises from the 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF BINGEN. 303 

porphyry rock on the Bath Island, formed by the river 
dividing into two channels. The ruins of the old 
Castle Kauzenberg overlook the town, another relic 
of French destruction which was a fortress of the 
Counts of Sponheim. The hill is now a pleasure 
ground with vineyards on its southern slope. There 
is a lion hewn in stone on the summit, which com- 
memorates the bravery at the battle of Sprendlingen 
in the thirteenth century, of Michel Mort of Kreuz- 
nach, who lost his life in saving his chief, Johann of 
Sponheim. The Nahe below Kreuznach flows through 
gentler scenery, and a broadened valley of vineyards 
and gardens, and about ten miles away falls into the 
Ehine at Bingen. A bridge crosses at its mouth, car- 
rying over the railway bordering the Ehine. A short 
distance inland is an old arched bridge, built centuries 
ago by Archbishop Willigis, upon foundations origi- 
nally laid by the Eomans for their bridge over the 
Nava, as they named the river. 

THE ATTRACTIOXS OF BINGEN. 

TTpon either hand the land rises high above the 
outlet of the Xahe, forming the heights of the Eup- 
pertsberg upon the left and the Klopp and Eochus- 
berg upon the right. Upon the lower surface ad- 
joining the river is Bingen, in an admirable location, 
facing the north and looking out upon the towering 
Niederwald, across the Ehine. The broad river com- 
ing from the east, suddenly turns to the north, con- 



304 THE RHINE. 

tracts^, and breaks through the opposing mountain 
wall. The rocky strata cross the river bed at the en- 
trance^ and made the dreaded whirlpool of the Binger 
Loch, or the "Hole of Bingen/' the dangers of the pas- 
sage having, however, been removed by blasting the 
sunken rocks, though the current still runs swiftly 
into the narrow pass. Here came the Eomans early in 
their occupation of the Ehine, and made a fortress 
where their roads to Cologne and Treves diverged, 
one going down the Rhine, the other up the I^ahe. It 
was their camp of Bingium, where a battle was fought 
with the Gauls in the first century, and the ruins of 
the original Roman stronghold built by Drusus on the 
heights back of the town, formed the foundation for 
the mediaeval castle of Klopp, which the town has re- 
cently restored, and its tower gives a beautiful view. 
The French destroyed both Bingen and Klopp, but 
the town is now a great centre of the wine trade, 
and has a good artificial harbor. 

The Rochusberg behind Bingen rises nearly four 
hundred feet, and on its eastern brow, which gives an 
admirable prospect over the Rheingau and the far- 
stretching plain adjoining the Rhine, is the famed 
Rochuscapelle. St. Roch who lived in the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries, devoted his life to the ser- 
vice of those who fell victims of the plague, and his 
intercession is invoked by the pious in times of pesti- 
lence. The saint was stricken down by the plague, 
when alone in the desert, and thus, without human 
aid, was miraculously fed every day by a dog bringing 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF BINGEX. 305 

him a loaf of bread. Hence, in votive pictures he is 
represented with a dog beside him, and as he raises 
his pilgrim's habit, the plague spots can be discovered 
on his thigh. After the plague had swept this district 
in 1666, this noted chapel was built in memory, but it 
was struck by lightning and burnt a few years ago and 
is now rebuilt. The festival of St. Eoch, the Sunday 
after August 16th, is the great day of Bingen, bring- 
ing multitudes of pilgrims, and making one of the 
most picturesque gatherings of the Ehine valley, the 
faithful renewing their vows, making their offerings, 
and invoking the saint's protection. When the French 
got possession after the Eevolution, this festival was 
intermitted for a long period, but it was revived in 
1814, and Goethe then attended it, and in his Reise 
am Rhein gives an interesting account of the festivity, 
and he afterward presented the chapel an altar-piece. 
Upon the Euppertsburg, west of Bingen, are the 
ruins of a convent once ruled by the noted Hildegard, 
whose tomb here was an object of pilgrimage. She 
was a seer and prophetess, but was never canonized. 
In the twelfth century, with eighteen nuns, she 
founded this convent, and wrote many manuscripts, 
had numerous visions and exerted almost boundless 
influence in her day. She was a friend of St. Ber- 
nard of Clairvaux, and as zealous as he, in preaching 
the Third Crusade. Imitating Moses on the Horeb 
mount, she is said to have gone to the highest peak 
of the Taunus, and there with outstretched arms, 
continued in fervent prayer for the success of the Cru- 



306 THE RHINE. 

sade until exhausted she fell senseless to the ground. 
Over on the opposite bank of the Ehine, on the 
steep slope of the Niederwald, rise the ruins of, Eh- 
renfels Castle, its towers overlooking the deepest and 
swiftest part of the river channel through the Binger 
Loch. It was built early in the thirteenth century 
as the stronghold of the then governor of the Ehein- 
gau, Philip of Bolanden, and for several centuries 
was a favorite home of the Archbishops of Mayence. 
The Swedes seriously damaged it in the Thirty Years' 
War, and then the French came along in 1689 and 
destroyed it. There are two conspicuous towers re- 
maining, connected by a lofty wall facing the hill 
slope. They stand most picturesquely, high above 
the river, with vineyards creeping up from below, and 
the steep face of the Niederwald as the background. 
Down in mid-river opposite this castle, is the rock 
that bears the famous Mouse Tower of Bingen. It is 
a small mediaeval structure with turreted tops, ancient 
and strange-looking, but kept in excellent repair as 
the most prized relic of this part of the Ehine; being 
now used as a lighthouse and watch-tower for guiding 
vessels through thei Loch. It is said to have been 
built in the beginning of the thirteenth century for a 
toll-collecting tower, the name coming from the old 
German word Miisthurm, meaning an "arsenal." Its 
living interest for the modern world, however, comes 
from the tradition connecting it with Archbishop 
Hatto. The story is a myth but is none the less in- 
teresting, and Eobert Southey has immortalized it 



Btngen—Mousf TOWf^R. 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF BINGEN. 307 

in his ballad. There were two Archbishops of May- 
ence named Hatto. The first, who was ambitious and 
violent, is said by tradition to have had his corpse 
seized by Satan and thrown into the crater of Mount 
Etna, immediately starting an eruption. The second 
Archbishop, who was cruel, the tradition tells us in- 
duced the hungry poor people of Bingen, who impor- 
tuned him for food in a time of famine, to enter his 
barn to be supj^lied : 

"Then when he saw it could hold no more, 
Bishop Hatto, he made fast the door; 
And while for mercy on Christ they call, 
He set fire to the barn and burnt them all. 

" 'I' faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire ! " quoth he, 
'And the country is greatly obliged to me, 
For ridding it in these times forlorn 
Of rats, that only consume the corn.' 

"So then to his palace returned he. 
And he sat down to supper merrily, 
And he slept that night like an innocent man, 
But Bishop Hatto never slept again. 

"In the morning, as he entered the hall, 
Where his picture hung against the wall, 
A sweat like death all over him came. 
For the rats had eaten it out of tlie frame. 

"As he look'd, there came a man from the farm. 
He had a countenance white with alarm; 
'My lord, I opened your granaries this morn, 
And the rats had eaten all your corn.' 

"Another came running presently. 
And he was pale as pale could be, 



308 THE RHINE. 

'Fly! my lord Bishop, fly,' quoth he, 

'Ten thousand rats are coming this way — 

The Lord forgive you for yesterday!' 

" 'I'll go to my tower on the Rhine,' replied he, 

' 'Tis the safest place in Germany ; 

The walls are high and the shores are steep, 
. And the stream is strong and the waters deep.' 

But the army of rats driven from the burnt barn 
swam after him. They climbed into the tower in 
such numbers that they scared his cat and her screams 
frightened him. 

"They are not to be told by the dozen or score, 
By thousands they came, and by myriads and more; 
Such numbers had never been heard of before, 
Such a judgment had never been witnessed of yore. 

"Down on his knees the Bishop fell. 
And faster and faster his beads did he tell, 
As louder and louder, drawing near, 
The gnawing of their teeth he could hear. 

"And in at the windows, and in at the door, 
And through the walls helter-skelter they pour. 
And down from the ceiling, and up through the floor, 
From the right and the left, from behind and before. 
From within and without, from above and below. 
And all at once to the Bishop they go. 

"They have whetted their teeth against the stones. 
And now they pick the Bishop's bones; 
They gnaw'd the flesh from every limb. 
For they were sent to do judgment on him." 

There still exist quaint old-time German pictures, 
showing the rats scaling the tower, on top of which is 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF BINGEN. 309 

the unfortunate Bishop, arrayed in cope and mitre, 
and with his pastoral staff, while a couple of huge, 
ravenous rats are perched on his shoulders. 

Few cities in the world have a more lovely situation 
than Bingen. Nestling upon the outer rim of the 
great sweeping curve of the Ehine, just at the outlet 
of the beautful Nahe valley its people look upon hill 
and vale, and the most attractive river, vineyard and 
garden scenery in all directions. Opposite rises the 
great hill of Rudesheim with its walled-terraces to 
hold up the prolific vines, and the massive German 
war monument high above. The strange little Mouse 
Tower is in front, and picturesque castles and de- 
licious villas and cottages fitly adorn the scene. Its 
beauty and remembrance, therefore, naturally 
prompted the muse of Eichard Brinsley Sheridan's 
granddaughter, Caroline N"orton, when she penned her 
popular poem of the German soldier of the French 
Legion who lay dying at Algiers, and his memory 
turned back to his birthplace "at Bingen on the 
Ehine" : 



'A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers; 
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of 

woman's tears; 
But a comrade stood beside him, while his life-blood ebbed 

away, 
And bent with pitying glances to hear what he might say. 
The dying soldier faltered as he took that comrade's hand, 
And he said 'I never more shall see my own, my native land; 
Take a message and a token to some distant friends of mine, 
For I was born at Bingen — at Bingen on the Rhine. 



310 THE RHINE. 

" 'Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet and 
crowd around 

To hear my mournful story, in the pleasant vineya.rd ground, 

That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was 
done 

Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale beneath the setting sun. 

And 'midst the dead and dying were some grown old in wars. 

The death-wound on their gallant breasts the last of many 
scars; 

But some were young, and suddenly beheld life's morn de- 
cline, 

And one had come from Bingen — fair Bingen on the Khine. 

" 'Tell my mother that her other sons shall comfort her old 

age. 
And I was aye a truant bird, that thought his home a cage; 
For my father was a soldier, and even as a child 
My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce 

and wild ; 
And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard, 
I let them take whate'er they would, but kept my father's 

sword. 
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used 

to shine. 
On the cottage wall at Bingen — calm Bingen on the Rhine. 

" 'Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping 

head, 
When the troops are marching home again, with glad and 

gallant tread; 
But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast 

eye, 
For her brother was a soldier, too, and not afraid to die. 
And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her, in my name, 
To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame, 
And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's sword 

and mine ) , 
For the honor of old Bingen — dear Bingen on the Rhine. 



THE ATTRACTIONS OF BINGEN. 311 

" 'There's another, not a sister, in the happy clays gone by, 
You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in 

her eye; 
Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning, 
0, friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest 

mourning. 
Tell her the last night of my life ( for ere the moon be risen 
My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison), 
I dream'd I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight 

shine 
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen — fair Bingen on the Rhine. 

" 'I saw the blue Rhine sweep along — I heard, or seemed to 

hear, 
The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and 

clear ; 
And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill, 
The echoing chorus sounded through the evening calm "and 

still; 
And her glad blue eyes were on me as we passed with 

friendly talk 
Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered 

walk. 
And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine, 
But we'll meet no more at Bingen — loved Bingen on the 

Rhine.' 

"His voice grew faint and hoarser — his grasp was childish 

weak — 
His eyes put on a dying look — he sighed and ceased to speak ; 
His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled — 
The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land was dead. 
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked 

down 
On the red sand of the battle field, with bloody corpses 

strown ; 
Yea, calmly on that dreadful scene lier pale light seemed to 

shine, 
As it shone on distant Bingen — fair Bingen on the Rhine." 



THE GREAT RHINE GORGE. 



Y. 

THE GREAT RHIXE GORGE. 

Assmannshausen — Rheinstein — St. Clement's — Falken- 
burg — Sooneck — Heimberg — Lorcli — Sauerburg — 
Kedrich Mountain — NoUicli Castle — Eiirstenberg — 
Bacharach — Stahleck Castle — Caub — Gutenfels — 
Pfalz — Oberwesel — Sclionberg Castle — The Lurlei 

— St. Goar — Rheinfels — St. Goarliausen — The Cat 
and the ^Nlouse — The Reichenberg — The Ehrenthal — 
Sterrenberg and Liebenstein — Boppard — Liebneck — 
The Marksburg — Rhens — The Konigsstuhl — Ober- 
lahnstein — Lahneck — Capellen — Stolzenfels — Ober- 
werth — The Hundsriick — The River Lahn — Ems — 
Nassau — Laurenburg — Dietz — Limburg — Dietkirchen 

— Wetzlar — Geissen — Xauheim — Marburg — The 
River Saar — Saarbriick — Spicheren — Saar Louis — 
Merzig — Montclair — Mettlaeh — The Klaus — Saar- 
burg — Conz — The River Moselle — Sierck — Nennig 

— Igel — Treves — Quint — Detzem — Riol — Neuma- 
gen — Berncastel — Cues — The Grafenberg — The 
Starkenberg — Montroyal — The Marienberg — The 
Barl — Bertrich — The Kaskeller — Stuben — Bremm 

— Cochem — The Winneburg — Beilstein — Carden — 
Moselkern — Schloss Eltz — Baldeneltz — Ehrenburg — 
Aiken — Thuron — Gondorf — Cobern — Coblentz 
Ehrenbreitstein — Asterstein — Niederwerth — The 
Sayn — Weissenthurm — Neuweid — Andernach — 
Hammerstein — Rheineck — Schloss Arenfels — Linz 

— Ockenfels — The Ahr — Sinzig — Neuenalir — Rema- 
gen — St. Apollinaris — The Landskron — Altenahr — 
The Eifel — The Hohe Acht — The Laacher See — Laach 

— The Mosenberg — Rolandseck — Nonnenwerth — 
Godesberg — The Seven Mountains — Konigswinter — The 
Drachenfels — Siegfried the Horny — Byron's Poem. 

315 



316 THE RHINE. 



THE RIVER OF THE ^THERLAND. 

"Chiefless castles, breathing stern farewells, 
From gray but leafy walls where Ruin greenly dwells." 

Where Ehrenfels looks down upon the little Mouse 
Tower at Bingen, begins the trne castellated Ehine. 
Here the great river enters the majestic gorge that 
has given the noble stream most of its fame in weird 
tradition and picturesque beauty. For seventy-seven 
miles from Bingen northwestward to the Seven Moun- 
tains the Ehine winds through successive ravines and 
chasms, breaking down the rocky ridges crossing its 
path. Ancient ruins replete with history and injih. 
peer down from almost every cliff and headland; time 
worn towers float the German flag that tells of cen- 
turies of story and exploit. Throughout all the gen- 
erations for more than a thousand years of chronicled 
recordS;, this wonderful river of the Fatherland has 
made a most profound impression. Victor Hugo 
wrote that "Father Ehine is the stream of warriors 
and of thinkers.^^ Longfellow, after he had explored 
and studied its scenic magnificence and impressive 
history, and the proud people along its shores, gushed 
forth in an expression, truly telling its inspiration: 
"Oh the pride of the German heart in this noble 
river !" 

We follow down the Ehine, still among the fortress- 
crowned heights. The current swiftly flows, bearing 



RHEINSTEIN. 317 

on its bosom all sorts of vessels, sailing and steaming, 
with frequent timber-rafts, bound to Holland and a 
market. D3'kes are occasionally built to improve the 
channel, and so prolific are the stories told, that every 
cliff, town and island seems to have its tradition. Just 
below the ruined Ehrenfels castle is Assmannshausen, 
where the Khine flows too swiftly for the village to 
maintain a pier. Here grow the best red wines of the 
Ehine, upon vines that were originally brought from 
Burgundy, the vineyards terraced upon the steep hill 
slopes facing the river. 

RHEINSTEIN". 

A little way below, on the western shore, rises the 
imposing Castle of Eheinstein, now one of the homes 
of Prince Henry of Prussia, the brother of the Ger- 
man Emperor William. This was long a ruin, but has 
recently been thoroughly restored and refurnished to 
again produce a fifteenth century castle, with the 
added adornments of old armor and pictures and mod- 
ern stained glass. Prince Frederick of Prussia, who 
directed the restoration, is interred in the chapel. 
When the castle originated is unknown. It is men- 
tioned as early as the thirteenth century, and for a 
long period its owners exacted a "Jew's toll," com- 
pelling every Jew who passed along the river to pay a 
fee, while there is also a traditon that little dogs were 
kept, which had been trained to single out and seize 
upon every Jew among the throngs of passing trav- 



318 THE RHINE. 

ellers, though this tale is doubted. The castle towers 
high above St. Clement^s Churgji^ among the trees by 
the river side, somewhat farther down stream, which 
also has been restored. The great stronghold rises 
on the crest of a rock, hanging closely over the river, 
with barely room for a narrow road passing along at 
the base. Its elevation is two hundred and sixty feet 
above the water, the massive pinnacled towers and de- 
fensive walls seen from afar. Sir Kuno von Falken- 
stein lived here in the fourteenth century, and we are 
told there also lived in the village the beautiful 
Gerda of Eheinstein, famed as being, along the Ehine 
"the fairest maiden from Constance to the sea.^^ She 
loved the brave Sir Kuno, and the neighborhood story 
tells of her woes, though she was made happy at last, 
in spite of an imperious father who encouraged an- 
other suitor. 

. The legend of St. Clement's Church down by the 
waterside is more weird. St. Clement, who was mar- 
tyred in the first century by being bound to an an- 
chor and cast into the sea, has since been always in- 
voked by the pious, when in peril from storm. There 
is a beautiful valley, the Sauer-thal, that comes out 
to the Wisper, which enters the Ehine not far away, 
and we are told that once the fierce lord of Ehein- 
stein, carried off a fair and wealthy damsel from her 
home in this pleasant vale, and taking her upon the 
river, and through the whirling rapids below the Bin- 
ger Loch, a fierce tempest arose. The maiden in her 
despair vowed that should she be saved from her 



RHElNStEIN. 319 

double peril, she would build a church to St. Clement, 
on the projecting point of land toward which the boat 
was driving before the gale, and almost under the 
high and frowning castle. x\t once St. Clement him- 
self appeared, walking upon the waves, and the 
maiden, seizing his hand, was safely landed. The 
boat with its evil lord was swamped, but we are not 
accurately told whether the fierce robber of Rheinstein 
was given then and there his just deserts by drowning. 
The maiden, however, fulfilled her vow and the church 
was duly built. It is a small structure in the late Ro- 
manesque; and another tale connected with it is, 
that when Rudolph of Hapsburg cleared out the rauh- 
ritters from this part of the Rhine, the knights of 
Waldeck made it an expiatory chapel to secure the 
peace of their souls. All these castles were the nests 
of these titled robbers, of the middle ages, who preyed 
upon the travellers and the commerce passing along 
the river, and engaged in bitter and protracted feuds 
with each other. This annoyance had much to do with 
promoting the formation of the League of Rhenish 
towns, and about the close of the thirteenth century, 
the Diet of the German Empire imposed sentence 
against them, and these castellated strongholds were 
then stormed and most of them destroyed, thus put- 
ting an end to much of the brigandage of the Rhine. 
Their picturesque ruins still crown the hilltops and re- 
call those early and uncertain times. Just below St. 
Clement's Church is Falkenburg on a rocky crest, 
where Philip von Hohenfels and his band were cap- 



320 THE RHINE. 

tured by Rudolph and all of them put to the gallows. 
This castle was afterward destroyed by the French in 
1689. Farther down is Sooneck, its broken and tur- 
reted battlements and slender tower rising on high. 
Eudolph also captured this stronghold and hanged the 
robber owners. The German Emperor has lately made 
this one of the picturesque fortresses of the Rhine. 
Another castle, Heimberg, rises farther north, having 
a splendid view along the river valley. 

LORCH AND BACHARACH. 

The general course of the Rhine is northwest, and 
the lateral streams coming in on both shores, cut 
down most attractive ravines, while everywhere the 
sun-favored hill slopes are covered with vineyards. 
Across on the eastern side just below Heimberg, is the 
beautiful vale of the Wisper, and here is Lorch, the 
village making a long street upon the river bank. Up 
the valley, where lived any number of elves and fairies 
and mountain sprites, is the ruin of ancient Gerol- 
stein, and there comes in from the northeast the lat- 
eral valley of the Sauerthal, where is the grim old 
Sauerburg, once a possession of the Sickingens, but 
destroyed by the French in 1689. All this region was 
controlled by them, and in the Church of St. 
Martin in Lorch is a monument to the Knight 
Johann Hilchen, of Lorch, who was a most trusted 
companion in arms of the redoubtable Franz von 
Sickingen. This church possesses the finest chime of 



LORCH AND BACHARACH. 321 

bells in the Eheingau, and an elaborately carved altar 
and font of the fifteenth century. Hilchen's house is 
carefully preserved, fronting on the Ehine, and it is 
recorded that the knight bravely fought the Turks, 
and also against the French invaders in 154:3-44, 
when he was a field marshal. Behind the village rises 
Kedrich mountain, having the rugged cliff of the 
"DeviFs Ladder" toward the summit. In the recesses 
of this rocky hill are hidden fabulous treasures, and 
it is the home of the mysterious "earth-men," or 
dwarfs who guard them. Sometimes, it is said that 
careful listeners can hear them hammering deep under 
ground, but unfortunately, their hoards of gold, silver 
and gems, are no longer exposed to mortal eyes, 
though Lorch abounds in legends relative to the happy 
people who in times long past got occasional glimpses. 
High over the "Devil's Ladder" and nearly six hun- 
dred feet above the Ehine, rises the ruined Nollich 
Castle. We are also told that in the dim past, by the 
assistance of these mountain dwarfs, a bold knight of 
Lorch scaled the cliff on horseback, and thus won 
his lady-love. This castle flourished in the early 
twelfth century. On the opposite bank of the Rhine, 
are the remains of another, coming down from the 
same period, Fiirstenberg, also standing high above 
the river. This belonged anciently to Cologne, and 
it is chronicled that when Adolph of Nassau, was on 
his way down the Rhine, in 1292, to be crowned em- 
peror at Aix la Chapelle, the robber knights who gar- 
risoned it forciblv detained the vessel and levied toll. 



332 THE RHINE. 

In the next century the castle was captured, and after 
running the gauntlet of many subsequent wars, the 
French came along and destroyed it in 1689. 

A few miles below, on the western bank, comes in 
the narrow ravine of the Steeger, having vineyards on 
its slopes, and displaying the usual ruined castles. 
Blucher in January, 1814, pursued the French up this 
valley, from which circumstance it is now often called 
the Blucherthal. At the mouth of the stream there 
nestles on the Ehine, the ancient town of Bacharach, 
with antique walls and picturesque towers, for a long 
time the chief wine-market of the Eheingau. High 
above is Stahleck Castle, originally a Roman work and 
once strongly fortified, the extensive ruins spreading 
down the hill slope, and connecting with the old 
walls and towers enclosing the town, thus displaying 
the elaborate system of mediaeval defences. This 
fortress formerly was the chief residence of the Counts 
Palatine of the Rhine, and the French, after taking it 
eight times in the seventeenth century, finally demol- 
ished it in their universal Rhenish destruction in 1689. 
Bacharach was early known as Bachercho, and there 
are suggestions, no doubt based upon its great wine 
trade prior to the Thirty Years' War, that the name 
originally came from BaccJii-ara, the "altar of Bac- 
chus." Out in the river there is a rock with that 
name, which is said to be a guide to the prospective 
success of the season's vintage. Usually water covers 
the rock, but when the absence of rain reduces the 
level and exposes it early in the summer, then the 



LORCH AND BACHARACH. 323 

vintage, which loves a dry season, is sure to be good. 
We are informed that a cask of Bacharach wine was 
always sent annually to the Pope, and the town of 
Nuremberg originally obtained its freedom through an 
annual tribute given the German Emperor of four 
tuns of this wine. 

Bacharach displays quaint old-time half-timbered 
and thatched-roofed houses, among them being a 
sixteenth century structure, recently restored in its 
original form as the Weber Inn. There is also the 
Eomanesque Templar's Church of St. Peter, its 
rounded choir facing the main street, and three tow- 
ers, one square and two round, rising at the ends. 
The parsonage is also an ancient towered structure 
which was formerly a monastery of the Capuchins. 
The famous relic of Bacharach, however, is the Church 
of St. Werner, built in the thirteenth century to mark 
the canonization of St. Werner, but now a ruin in 
graceful preservation. This shrine was for centuries 
an object of pious pilgrimages, because it commemor- 
ated one of the noted miracles on the Ehine. We are 
informed by the ancient chronicler that an old woman 
of Bacharach, sold the child Werner in 1286, to some 
Jews of Oberwesel, farther down the river, and they 
crucified him, throwing the body into the stream. 
Most miraculously it ascended the Ehine, against the 
swift current, and was cast ashore at the feet of the 
woman who had sold the child. This made a great 
marvel and the church was built overlooking the spot 
and consecrated in 1293. 



324 THE RHINE. 



THE PFALZ AND THE SCHONBURG. 

A little farther northward another deep lateral fis- 
sure brings a romantic stream into the Ehine on the 
eastern side, which is also called the Bliicherthal. 
Down this gorge came Blucher's army on New Year, 
1814, and crossed the river to the western bank on 
pontoons, the enthusiastic troops shouting, "The 
Ehine ! The Ehine !" as they did so, for they had long 
been shut off from the great river by the domination 
of N'apoleon. Here is the pleasant village of Caub, 
its old walls telling of a stirring past, but its present 
devotion chiefly being to some very productive slate 
quarries. Its chief modern memory is of Blucher, 
the Stadt Mannheim in the village having been for 
three days the bluff old Marshal's headquarters, 
and his statue being recently erected, showing him 
pointing out to his soldiers the way over the Ehine. 
Above the town lies the old Castle of Cube, 
more recently known as Gutenfels, with lofty turreted 
tower, dating from the twelfth century and in 1277 
coming under control of the Palatinate, It was a 
seat of the Knights of Falkenstein, and here the Earl 
of Cornwall, who was chosen the German king in 
1257, found his second bride in one of their beautiful 
daughters, the Countess Beatrix. 

Out in midstream in a narrow bend among the green 
hills, is a ledge of rock, on which is built the curious 



THE PFALZ AND THE SCHONBURG. 325 

old castle of Pfalz, with its projecting gables. This 
was the Pfalzgrafenstein, founded by the Emperor 
Louis the Bavarian, and is well preserved. It is a 
hexagonal building, with a five-sided tower, strangely 
roofed, displaying numerous protruding corners and 
turrets, having loopholes opening in all directions, 
and only one entrance, which is several feet above the 
rocky ledge, and reached only by a ladder. Toward 
the south, up stream, there is a sharp angle of the 
building which serves to break the ice flowing down 
with the current in winter, and here is displayed the 
lion of the Palatinate, bearing the escutcheon of the 
ancient lords of the domain. It was right here that 
Blucher^s troops crossed the Ehine. The Pfalz is a 
perfect representation of a mediaeval stronghold. But 
the place was famous previously to the present con- 
struction. In the original structure various Prankish 
monarchs lived. Here came Charlemagne's son, Louis 
the Pious, in 840, to die, desiring, according to the 
historian, that "a leafy hut or thatched lodge should 
be prepared, such as had served him while hunting in 
the forest,'' and "lying on his couch, lulled by the 
music of the gurgling waters," his life ebbed away. 
We are told that inside the castle there is a well that 
goes down far deeper than the bed of the Ehine, while 
in its dark dungeons various prisoners of state have 
been confined. 

Not far below is Oberwesel, located on the narrow 
shore just above the entrance on the western side of 
the pretty little river Wesel. It is a charming old vil- 



326 THE RHINE. 

lage, having two ancient churches and quaint walls and 
towers, broadening out into battlemented tops, and 
pinnacled turrets, with here and there distributed the 
curious houses of mediaeval days. Above it rises the 
badly-shattered old-time ruin of Schonberg castle,with 
its four huge towers, a relic of the twelfth century, 
but having adjacent, a modern chateau. Oberwesel 
was the early Eoman station of Vosavia, and its de- 
fensive works survive from the ninth century. It now 
boasts the popular inn of the "Golden Corkscrew,^' 
and in the town wall facing the river is the Chapel of 
St. Werner, while the tall, round Ochsenthurm, at the 
northern end of the fortifications, has been carefully 
preserved, its pinnacles rising well in the view> In the 
churches are memorials of the knights and counts 
of Schonburg, who originally held the castle. One of 
the greatest of the family was Count Frederick who 
was known as Marshal Schomberg, minister of Prus- 
sia and who afterward joined the Prince of Orange 
when he went to England, and fell in Ireland at the 
Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The French destroyed 
this castle in 1689. Its great tradition is of the "Sie- 
ben Jungfrauen" — ^the "seven fair maidens of Schon- 
burg," who, for their hard-hearted indifference to the 
seven suitors sighing for them, were transformed by 
the fairy siren of the Lurlei whirlpool into the seven 
small rocks, known as the "Seven Virgins," appearing 
in the middle of the river when the water is low, op- 
posite the rocky projection of the Eosstein, on the 
easterQ bank just below the town. All along this ro- 



THE SIREN OF THE LURLEI. 327 

mantic portion of the river it winds among precipitous 
cliffs, the shores in many places being too steep even 
for the vine growers to cultivate, while the railway 
trains on both banks dart through frequent tunnels. 
The current also becomes -stronger as the channel is 
contracted. The old owners of the Schonburg, living 
alongside the narrow, rocky gorge through which the 
Ehine flows, had excellent opportunity to get their 
living by levying contributions upon the passing! 
craft. The unfortunate traveller of that time had to 
pay dearly for his voyage along the picturesque river, 
while the wanderer of to-day is beset by the tip-gath- 
erers of a later and possibly more enlightened yet fully 
as avaricious a race. 

THE SIREN OF THE LURLEI. 

The Ehine makes a sharp bend from the northwest 
to the northeast around the promontory of the Eoss- 
tein, and then turning northward with a winding 
channel comes to the narrowest and one of the most 
romantic portions of the river — the Lurlei. Here 
lived the siren who fascinated the passers-by and lured 
them into the whirlpool of the dreaded "gewirr.^^ An 
enormous cliff of black basalt rises precipitously on 
the eastern bank, protruding far into the river, which 
surges at times violently around its base. This nar- 
rows the stream to about six hundred and sixty feet 
width, and in the olden time, before the navigable 
channel had been improved, the sunken reefs of ba- 



328 THE EHINE. 

salt ran across, making the whirlpool, and one of the 
most dangerous passages of the Rhine. Now, how- 
ever, these rocks have been removed and this has be- 
come the deepest part of the channel, over seventy 
feet. The wiles of this seductive fairy of the Lurlei 
have been the burden of legends from the remotest 
times, and both poet and painter have graphically de- 
picted them. In recent years, a railway tunnel has 
been bored right through the protruding end of the 
abrupt and frowning precipice, and the siren and her 
attendant retinue of sprites and water nymphs have 
been scared away by the locomotive. The German flag 
floats from a staff high on the summit, and the fame of 
the Lurlei is now confined to its wonderful echo, the 
boat whistle being repeated back and forth sometimes 
fully fifteen times. It was natural that the gaunt 
black cliff, the terrible whirlpool, the hidden rocks and 
the powerful echo, should have combined with the 
wild rush of waters in time of storm and freshet, in 
remote times, to fire the imaginative minds of the 
dwellers on the Rhine, and thus have woven the le- 
gends of the fascinating and terrible siren of the 
Lurlei. She decoyed the passers-by to destruction, 
and once captured and drowned the only son of the 
Prince Palatine, while many a gallant knight of the 
Rhineland was thus hypnotized and destroyed. Heine 
has sung of the cruel yet most beautiful siren, sitting 
on the rock alongside the river, combing her yellow 
hair with a golden comb and singing the weird re- 
frain that lures the fisherman from his shallop; and 



ST. GOAR AND RHEINFELS. 329 

the ancient chronicles record how the mysterious 
treasure of the Nibelungenlied lies hidden and bound 
by a spell, under her rock the ponderous Lurlenberg. 

ST. GOAR AND RHEINFELS. 

A long dyke protrudes below the Lurlei to main- 
tain the channel, and the river then bends to the 
northwest and flows in front of the handsome village 
of St. Goar, spread extensively along the shore at the 
foot of the hillslopes, with St. Goarhausen similarly 
extended on the opposite bank. The hills press closely 
upon the river, and do not leave much space for 
either. St. Goar, the hermit, came here to preach the 
gospel in the sixth century, when this region was the 
kingdom of Austrasia, and under the auspices of 
King Siegbert, the Chapel of St. Goar was founded, 
thus naming the place. There is a spacious harbor, 
for the towns have much trade, but since 1827, when 
steamboat traffic on the Ehine began, the ancient trav- 
eller's initiation of the "Hanseln," for which St. 
Goar was famous, has been abandoned. This ordeal 
of "the water or the wine," began in the days of 
Charlemagne. The traveller was taken to the Custom 
House and fastened to a ring in the wall, being asked 
which he preferred. If he selected water, he was given 
plenty of it, in the form of a liberal ducking. But if 
he preferred wine, he had the more pleasant alterna- 
tive of drinking a goblet to the memory of Charle- 
magne, and to the reigning prince and the society that 



330 THE RHINE. 

enforced this ordeal. His name was then recorded 
on the society's roll, and he presented a donation to 
the poor fund. In the ancient church there is a rude 
effigy of St. Goar, with a partly effaced inscription. 
We are told that the prayers of this saintly man have 
saved many a sailor and fisherman from the dangerous 
"gewirr/' and that he long and successfully contended 
with the heathen goddess of the Lurlei. It is also re- 
corded of him that like other saints, being caught out 
in a summer storm, which drenched him and then 
cleared away, he hung his cloak on a sunbeam to dry. 
He was buried in the crypt, but his bones long ago dis- 
appeared. A mark on the altar is shown, which was 
made by Gustavus Adolphus, who became so indig- 
nant at the damage done the old church by the invad- 
ing Spaniards, in the Thirty Years' War, that he vio- 
lently struck it with his sword in emphasizing the de- 
nunciation. 

The great precipices enclosing the gorge with the 
hill slopes and castles, make this part of the river one 
of the most magnificent displays of the Ehine scen- 
ery. The castellated ruins so profusely scattered, are 
well described by Bulwer when he depicts the effects 
of a tempest. "A storm upon the Ehine," he says, 
'Tias a grandeur it is vain to paint. Its rocks, its 
foliage, the feudal ruins that ever3^where rise from the 
lofty heights, speaking in characters of stern decay 
of many a former battle against time and tempest, the 
rapid course of the legendary river, all harmonize with 
the elementary strife, and you feel that to see the 



ST. GOAR AND RHEINFELS. 331 

Ehine only in sunshine, is to be unconscious of its 
most majestic aspects." 

High on the hill back of St. Goar, are the ruins of 
Eheinfels, the largest and once the most powerful 
fortress controlling the Ehine. Upon the churchyard 
wall adjoining the path up to the castle, is the Flam- 
mensaule, an interesting rough sandstone obelisk 
which was there before the Eomans came. The re- 
mains of Eheinfels, the eyrie of the Katzenelnbo- 
gens, who had so much to do with the robber history 
of the great river, are nearly four hundred feet above 
the shore. Originally this was a monastery, but in the 
thirteenth century Count Diether III. of Katzeneln- 
bogen, under the patronage of the Emperor Freder- 
ick IL, seized it, and built the castle, establishing an- 
other "Ehein-toll," so that it became a formidable 
robbers^ nest and once owned the whole country 
round about, until the ^'League of the Ehenish 
Towns'' came and besieged it. The siege was kept up 
for fifteen months unsuccessfully, when they desisted. 
Then they came back with a stronger force, captured 
it and ousted the raubritters. Ultimately the castle 
passed under control of Hesse, who made it a fortress, 
and the French, with twenty-four thousand besiegers 
vainly tried to capture it in 1692, being driven off. 
They surprised and took it in 1758, and held it 
a while, but the Hessians again got possession, though 
in 1794 it finally fell into the hands of the French 
Eevolutionists, and was blown up three years later 
and sold for $500. Much of it collapsed and fell in 



332 THE RHINE. 

July, 1903. Now, Germany owns it, and the vast ag- 
gregation of picturesque ruins on top of the spacious 
rock overlooks the magnificent scenery all around, and 
the river valley and bordering villages far beneath. 

THE CAT AND THE MOUSE. 

Above the narrow strip of town at St. Goarhausen, 
over on the opposite hill slope is the ruined castle of 
the !N^eu Katzenelnbogen, a work commonly known as 
the "Castle of the Cat.^^ Count Johann of that famous 
family built this castle in the fourteenth century, 
but the line became extinct in 1479, and then, like 
Eheinfels, it went to Hesse. They held it until the 
French destruction in 1804, and since it has been an 
attractive ruin, around which winds the beautiful 
Swiss Valley, behind the castle and the village. A 
little farther down the river, where the Welmicher 
brook comes in through a deep ravine, are the ruins 
of the old Thurnberg castle. This was a stronghold 
built for an outpost in the fourteenth century by the 
Archbishop of Treves, Boemund II., and finished by 
his successor, Kuno of Falkenstein. There is a fine 
view from the summit along the river, and this fort- 
ress of the Archbishops, who were great rivals of the 
Katzenelnbogens, was derisively called by the latter, 
the "Mouse," to distinguish it from their "Cat." They 
tried vainly, however, to capture it, for this "Mouse" 
of Treves was always the master, defying the "Cat," 
who trembled before it and could never conquer. In 



THE CAT AND THE MOUSE. 333 

the devious and bushwhacking politics of that time, 
the Archbishops of Treves, over on the Moselle, usu- 
ally conquered, either by adroitness or force. About 
three miles inland from St. Goarhausen, are the well- 
preserved ruins of the Eeichenberg, another castle of 
the Katzenelnbogens, built by Count Wilhelm in the 
thirteenth century. These weather-beaten relics of 
ancient glory inspired Byron in Childe Harold: 



"True Wisdom's world will be 
Within its own creation or in thine, 

Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee. 
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? 
There Harold gazes on a work divine, 

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, 
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine. 

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 

From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. 

"And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd. 

All tenantless, save to the crannying wind, 
Or holding dark communion with the cloud. 
There was a day when they were young and proud. 

Banners on high, and battles pass'd below; 
But they who fought are in a bloody shroud. 

And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, 

And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 

"Beneath these battlements, within those walls, 
Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state 

Each robber chief upheld his armed halls. 
Doing his evil will, nor less elate 
Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 

What want these outlaws conquerors should have 



334 THE RHINE. 

But History's purchased page to call them great? 
A wider space, an ornamented grave? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as 
brave." 

Passing these old castles at St. Goar, .we get into a 
region of silver and lead mines, which tradition says 
have been worked from before the Eoman days on the 
Ehine. This is a veritable domain of gnomes and 
dwarfs, and the villages on both sides of the river 
abound in weird legends of the mine sprites who give 
up their treasures most reluctantly. Sometimes, too, 
they help the oppressed maiden, and the story is told 
of the damsel of the Ehrenthal on the eastern bank, 
who was prevented from marrying by a cruel mine- 
master. His consent was necessary, but he refused 
it until she could bring him both a bridal robe and a 
shroud spun from nettles grown on the graves of her 
parents. She sat alongside their green graves despair- 
ing, but the sprites heard her lamentations, and they 
made the nettles spring up in a single night and 
themselves spun the robe and the shroud. One served 
for the bride, and the other was very properly worn by 
the doomed master. We are also told that these elfish 
sprites often misled the miners by strange knockings 
and sounds deep down in the borings. 

A little way below near the river bank is the old 
convent of Bornhofen, its church being a great pil- 
grim resort. Upon a bold rock rising high above, 
stand the twin castles, known as "the Brothers" — 
Sterrenberg and Liebenstein. Thus briefly narrated, 



THE CAT AND THE MOUSE. 335 

is their interesting story. The brave Knight Bayer 
von Boppard was the lord of Liebenstein, and had two 
sons, Conrad and Heinrich, both of them dearly lov- 
ing their foster-sister, the fair Hildegarde. Heinrich, 
with great generosity, gave her up to Conrad and went 
off to the Crusades where he did valiant service. 
The father built Sterrenberg Castle near his own for 
the home of Conrad and his bride, but died before its 
completion and the marriage was delayed. Then 
Conrad's heart grew cold; he envied his brother's 
knightly fame; and soon he too went off to the Cru- 
sades, and Hildegarde languished forsaken in Lie- 
benstein Castle. Before long Conrad returned with 
a newdy made bride whom he had met in Greece, took 
possession of Sterrenberg, and then the outraged Hil- 
degarde shut herself up in despair in the loneliest 
chamber of Liebenstein. Many days passed, and one 
evening a stranger knight stopped at the castle ask- 
ing its hospitality. It was Heinrich, who had heard of 
his brother's perfidy, and next day he challenged 
Conrad to combat. They met, but before their swords 
had crossed, Hildegarde weeping, rushed between, 
separated them and insisted on a reconciliation. They 
reluctantly consented, and then Hildegarde retired to 
the convent of Bornhofen. About that time as often 
occurs in these romantic tales of woe, the Grecian 
bride proved faithless and disappeared, and in deepest 
remorse, Conrad sought his brother, threw himself at 
his feet, asked forgiveness and reconciliation, and 
thereafter the brothers lived in warmest friendship at 



336 THE EHINE. 

Liebenstein, while Sterrenberg was abandoned. T^ow, 
the ruins of the castles and convent are looked at with 
interest, both castles antedating the twelfth century, 
and having afterward been held by the lords of Treves. 
A massive wall, called "the wall of combat^' in allusion 
to the hostility of the brothers, and a moat, separate 
the castles, Sterrenberg being the highest on the rock 
and commandinsr a fine view. 

o 

BOPPARD TO STOLZENFELS. 

The Ehine makes a grand sweeping curve around 
to the westward, and we come to ancient Boppard 
with its old walls, its mediaeval convent at the back 
of the town now turned into a water-cure establish- 
ment, and its impressive double-spired church. This 
picturesque village was originally the Celtic settle- 
ment of Bodobriga, to which the Eomans came and 
made a fortified camp. There was then constructed 
a rectangular fortress in the centre of the place about 
a thousand feet long and half that width, much of the 
walls and traces of the towers and gates remaining. 
These ancient walls were ten feet thick and twenty-six 
feet high. The outer fortifications are of German 
construction, built at the time in the twelfth century 
when Boppard became an imperial town, the German 
Diet occasionally meeting here. In the early four- 
teenth century the German Emperor Henry VII. 
ceded Boppard and the whole Ehine country up to 
Oberwesel and beyond, to his brother, Baldwin, Elec- 



BOPPARD TO ISTOJ.ZEiNFELIS. 337 

tor of Treves, but it took Baldwin six years to master 
the rebellious people of Boppard. To help in this 
subjection he built the old castle down by the Ehine 
which is still preserved. The double-towered church 
stands not far away, a relic of the twelfth century. 
There are also fragments remaining of the Templehof, 
the Lodge of the Knights Templar of Boppard who 
went to the Third Crusade and were at the storming 
of Ptolemais in 1191. The old Benedictine convent be- 
hind the town, is the Marienberg, and its park is at- 
tractive. The pretty valley of the Miihlthal opens into 
the Rhine just below Boppard, the high Alte Burg ris- 
ing over eight hundred feet commanding it. Back 
among the hills is the lofty Fleckertshohe at over sev- 
enteen hundred feet elevation, giving a superb view 
over the magnificent valley of the Ehine for many 
miles. 

The grand river, having turned in splendid curve 
to the westward past Boppard, now doubles upon it- 
self and swings again around a wide semicircle to 
the eastward, making a most gorgeous amphitheatre 
of high wooded hills as its spacious environment. The 
channel around the curve is dyked for maintenance, 
and high up on the long and narrow peninsula thus 
encircled, in a most superb situation, rises the pretty 
Chateau of Liebeneck, appearing more like a church 
than a castle, with its peaked spire, looking far down 
upon the river thus flowing almost entirely around it. 
Vineyards cling to the banks, and soon the Rhine 
makes another grand reverse curve, going in this one 

22 



338 THE RHINE. 

around from the east to the northwest, and on the 
northeastern shore passing the imposing castle of the 
Marksburg, five hundred feet above the water, which 
is said to be the only old fortress on the river which 
has escaped destruction. This was another robber 
stronghold of the Katzenelnbogens, and from its 
square-topped towers on the conical hill summit, they 
came down to the bank to halt the vessels, and if there 
was resistance, the captured were cast into the dun- 
geons beneath the towers for torture. Count Philip, 
in the fifteenth centurv, beino^ a little touched with 
remorse, made a chapel in the castle, dedicating it to 
St. Mark, and hence the name. Then when Hesse 
afterward got it, the place was used as a state prison, 
and now it is a peaceful restaurant, overlooking the 
village on the river's edge, and one of the most beau- 
tiful landscapes in the Ehineland. 

A little way farther down the river is the town of 
Ehens, long an outpost of Cologne, and still sur- 
rounded by the defences constructed by the Arch- 
bishop in the fourteenth century. Then we come to 
that famous relic of old Germany, down by the water- 
side, the Konigsstuhl. This "king's seat," was from 
the most ancient times, the meeting place of the Ger- 
man Electors, and in the fourteenth century the Em- 
peror Charles IV. originally erected the structure on 
the site, which, in 1843, was rebuilt, using most of the 
old materials. It is built of dark gray stone like a 
pulpit, octagonal, about eighteen feet high, and 
twenty-two feet in diameter. Upon the platform on 



BOPPARD TO STOLZENFELS. 339 

the top, the powerful Electors held their meetings, 
there being stone seats for the seven Electors, and 
this site having been chosen because of -its closeness 
to the domains of the three ecclesiastical Electorates 
of the Ehine, Ehens, belonging to the Archbishop of 
Cologne, Lahnstein, across the river, to the Archbish- 
op of Mayence, and Capellen, about a mile northward, 
to the Archbishop of Treves, while the province of the 
Palatinate Elector was only a short distance up the 
river, at Caub. At this famous Konigsstuhl many of 
the German Emperors were chosen, and their decrees 
issued and treaties proclaimed. Out in midstream 
rises from the bed of the Ehine, a noted mineral 
spring, resembling seltzer-water. Over on the eastern 
shore is Oberlahnstein, south of the river Lahn, and 
just outside the town gate is a small white chapel sur- 
rounded by trees. It was here in August, 1400, that 
the Ehenish Electors took the Imperial crown away 
from the Bohemian king, Wenzel, and then crossing 
the river to the Konigsstuhl, the next day elected the 
Count Palatine Eupert III., Emperor of Germany. 
A busy port is Oberlahnstein, shipping the iron ores 
produced in the hills that adjoin the Lahn, and upon 
the cliff behind the town rises the conspicuous castle 
of Lahneck, recently restored, to make a beautiful 
modern home, the pinnacled tower commanding a 
wide view. It survives from the thirteenth century, 
but the French, in 1689, partially destroyed it. In 
1774, Goethe first saw this attractive ruin and com- 
posed his exquisite Geistes-Gruss. 



340 THE EHINE. 

The most admired view of this beautiful region, 
however, is that from the western bank. Opposite the 
outlet of the Lahn, the village of Capellen spreads 
narrowly along a single highway facing the Ehine. 
Behind it rises a steep tree-clad hill, with a surmount- 
ing eminence, and here at over three hundred feet ele- 
vation, the summit is crowned with ^^the proud rock" 
— Stolzenfels. This rock, from the earliest times, was 
one of the strong fortifications of the Ehine, but in 
the thirteenth century, Arnold von Isenberg, Arch- 
bishop of Treves, coming into possession, built this 
powerful castle as an outpost of his domain. Its bat- 
tlements and turrets are seen from afar, and high 
above all rises the tall pentagonal tower, one hundred 
and ten feet, its top elevating the proud possessor of 
that day, and the delighted observer of the present, 
more than four hundred and twenty feet above the 
Ehine, flowing at its base. The French bombarded 
and damaged the castle in 1689, but it has since been 
restored and is now the property of the German Em- 
peror. It has been furnished to represent the mediae- 
val stronghold, and among the treasures in the armory 
are the swords of Blucher, Tilly, Alva and Sobieski. 
The view from the tower is admirable. Across the 
Ehine comes in the romantic valley of the Lahn be- 
tween the towns on either bank, Oberlahnstein in 
front, and Niederlahnstein just beyond. These and 
the picturesque castle of Lahneck, make the fore- 
ground, while the deep and winding gorge spreads far 
back to the eastward, disappearing in the distance 



BOPPARD TO STOLZEXFELS. 341 

among the dark wooded hills. At our feet flows the 
Ehine, through the deep fissure it has made, with 
everything in splendid review, from the attractive 
Marksburg to the southeast above, away off down the 
stream northward, to Coblentz and bevond. Xorth 
from the Lahn stretches in delicious fertility the wide 
plain made by the intervale, past the vineyards of 
Horchheim at the Ehine's edge, until enclosed by the 
hills at Coblentz where the Moselle flows in from the 
southwest. The great river just above their conflu- 
ence, divides its current to form the long island of 
Oberwerth, where an airy suspension bridge carries 
the railway over. Here once was a nunnery, which 
has recently been made into an attractive residence. 
Far away to the westward is the elevated plateau of 
the Hundsriick, between the Ehine and the Moselle. 

The great hills at Coblentz end the gorge which 
has contracted the Ehine with few interruptions, all 
the way down from Bingen, as it has broken its pas- 
sage through the opposing range of the Taunus hills. 
The river widens for a brief space to the northward, 
but soon enters other gorges. It was this great ravine 
between Bingen and Coblentz, which so much im- 
pressed Victor Hugo, with its varying and superb at- 
tractions. He has written of it most lavishly, and 
says that along this noble river highway, the pictur- 
esque towns and villages are mingled with the wildest 
nature. "Mists hang in the ravines. The clouds on the 
hillsides seem to linger, and to wait for the wind 
which shall carry them away. Sombre Druidical for- 



3-12 THE RHINE. 

ests hide themselves among mountains in the gray dis- 
tance. Huge birds of prey float under a capricious 
sky, which has something of the two climates separ- 
ated by the Ehine, and is sometimes bright with sun- 
shine, like an Italian heaven, and sometimes dim with 
russet fog like the heaven of Greenland. The bank is 
rough, the waves are blue, the basalts are black; 
everywhere sparkle mica and quartz; everywhere are 
vast rifts and fissures, and the rocks have the profiles 
of giants. It is clear that Nature, in forming the 
Ehine, had designed a desert. Man has made a street 
of the river — a street of soldiers in the days of the 
barbarians and of the Eomans; a street of priests all 
through the middle ages, when it was bordered, al- 
most throughout its course by ecclesiastical states; 
but in these days a street of travellers and of mer- 
chants." 

THE VALLEY OF THE LAHN. 

The river Lahn flows many miles down out of the 
plateaus to the northeastward, and then turning west, 
enters the Ehine. Southward of its valley are the 
hills of the Taunus, and to the northward, the barren 
plateau of the Westerwald, its elevations culminating 
in the Salzburgkopf, rising about two thousand feet. 
The valleys of the Lahn basin are usually very fertile, 
its chief products being ores and wines. Much of the 
lower valley is in the Duchy of Hesse-Nassau. The 
most noted town on its banks, and only a short dis- 



THE VALLEY OF THE LAHN. 343 

tance from the Ehine, is the watering-place of Ems, 
about seven miles southeast of Coblentz, in a beautiful 
vale, encircled by vine-clad slopes and dark wooded 
mountains. It is not a large place in population, 
though the old street, originally known as "Bad Ems,^^ 
which extended along the river bank, has since been 
rather eclipsed by the newer quarters, spreading up 
the hills on both sides. Its waters are from alkaline 
hot springs, of which there are a half-dozen and are 
used both for drinking and bathing. There are elab- 
orate pleasure grounds and an attractive Curhaus and 
Cursaal, connected by a tasteful colonnade, with also 
spacious bathing establishments. High above the 
town, on the southern bank of the river, rises the Mal- 
berg, nearly eleven hundred feet with a surmounting 
tower that visitors ascend for the view. All around 
there are splendid hill-tops, and to the northward is 
the highest elevation, nearly fifteen hundred feet, the 
Kemmenauer Hohe, having a magnificent landscape 
displayed far over the Ehine. 

The Eomans came to the springs at Ems, and the 
place was well known in the middle ages, but its chief 
development was during the nineteenth century. The 
greatest event which occurred at Ems, however, is 
modern, in July, 1870, and it began the Franco-Ger- 
man war. The two nations had been disputing about 
the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern 
for the throne of Spain. King William of Prussia 
had supported this candidature, he said, not as a sov- 
ereign, but as "the head of the Hohenzollern family." 



3i-i THE RHIXE. 

France objected, and this was used by her as the pre- 
text for war. The French ambassador. Count Bene- 
detti, had been conducting the negotiations with 
Frince Bismarck, and as King William and his conrt 
had visited Ems in Jnly, Benedetti also came here. 
On Jnly 13th, the}^ had the famous interview in which 
the king and the ambassador talked sharply about the 
subject, and a telegram was sent to Faris announc- 
ing that Benedetti had been publicly insulted by King 
William. Faris was soon aflame, and this was taken 
advantage of by the French government to declare 
war. The decision was announced two days later in 
the French Legislative Body, and the formal declara- 
tion delivered to Bismarck at Berlin on July 19th, 
1870. From that time began the misfortunes of 
France, and Germany got full redress for the atroci- 
ties and destructions wrought in the two preceding 
centuries along the Ehine. 

A few miles farther up the Lahn, is the little town 
of Xassau, the ancient Xasonga, which has furnished 
the title to two of the most distinguished families 
of Europe, the elder and the younger houses of Xas- 
sau. The founder of this line, Count Otho of Lauren- 
burg, was the brother of King Conrad L, who ruled 
the Lahn region in the tenth century. Otho lived at 
Laurenburg farther up the river, where the ruins of 
the ancient castle, demolished in the wars of the sev- 
enteenth century, still exist. His successors came 
down to Xasonga, and here on an abrupt hill over- 
looking the river. Count Dudo IV. built the Castle of 



THE VALLEY OF THE LAHN. 345 

Nassau, now in ruins, and assumed the title of Count 
of Nasonga or Nassau. Later in the twelfth century 
his successor transferred his allegiance from the Arch- 
bishop of Treves to the Emperor of Germany. Count 
Adolf of Nassau became the German Emperor in 
1292, but six years later he was defeated and slain by 
his rival Albert of Austria. He was the founder of the 
Dukedom of Nassau, the elder branch, while the 
younger line became Princes of Orange, and rulers of 
Holland, thus achieving the greater distinction. The 
wooded slope rising across the river from the pictur- 
esque little town, is crowned by the ruins of the an- 
cient Nassau castle, and lower down on the hill are the 
remains of the old Burg Stein, which was built in the 
twelfth century and destroyed in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. Here lived a long line of Barons, ancestors of 
the famous Baron Stein, the last of the line, the great 
Prussian minister who was born in Nassau and died 
in 1831. An elaborate monument to him stands on a 
projecting rock in front of the old castle, his statue 
being covered by an impressive Gothic canopy of red 
sandstone. Farther up the Lahn are the ruins of the 
old castles of Laurenburg, Balduinstein and Schaum- 
burg, each with its adjacent village. The latter at 
an elevation of nine hundred feet, overlooks the deep 
valle}^ from the summit of a ponderous rock of basalt. 
Dietz also has its old castle of the Counts of Dietz, 
now a correctional establishment. 

Limburg, about thirty miles up the Lahn, still 
cherishes its ancient cathedral with seven towers, the 



346 THE RHINE. 

basilica of St. George the Martyr, founded in the tenth 
century, which rises prominently above the river, and 
has alongside the remains of the castle of its founder, 
Count Conrad of the Niederlandgau, one of the great 
Salic chiefs. His monument is within. A short dis- 
tance above Limburg is Dietkirchen, the oldest church 
in this region, built in the seventh century, and stand- 
ing on a rocky eminence rising on the river bank. The 
Lahn has lead and silver mines below Limburg and 
extensive iron ore deposits in the Weilburg district 
above, these being the great industries of the valley. 
Sixty miles from the Ehine, the Lahn receives the 
Dill, and at their junction, on a bluff extending along 
the bank, is Wetzlar, with its ancient Cathedral, used 
alike by both Protestants and Catholics. The red 
sandstone is prominent in the buildings here, and the 
place is famous for its recollections of Goethe, whose 
bust adorns the Buttermarkt. Goethe lived at Wetz- 
lar in 1772, and the town and its neighborhood sug- 
gested his great work, the Sorrows of Wertlier. There 
are many memorials of this preserved, the originals 
of several of the characters being well known. The 
Werther Brunnen, shaded by an ancient lime tree, 
was a favorite resort of the poet, outside the Wild- 
bach Gate, whence a road ascends the river bank to 
Garbenheim on a hill overlooking the valley, which 
was the Wahlheim of Werther. At Giessen, about 
eight miles farther up the Lahn, is the seat of the 
noted University of Giessen, which was founded in 
1607, and has a library of over two hundred thou- 



THE VALLEY OF THE LAHN. 347 

sand volumes and attractive new buildings. For 
nearly thirty years the famous chemist Liebig was 
Professor of Chemistry here, and he established the 
first practical laboratory in Germany, afterward re- 
moving to Munich. He died in 1873 and his monu- 
ment adorns the promenade. The noted baths of 
Nauheim are in the northern slopes of the Taunus to 
the southward and these warm carbonized saline 
springs have many visitors. 

About eighteen miles north of Giessen in the Lahn 
valley is ancient Marburg, the town encircling the 
precipitous hill of the Schlossberg, crowned at an ele- 
vation of nearly nine hundred feet, by the spacious 
Schloss, formerly the castle of the Hessian princes 
and afterward a prison. The town owes its foundation 
to St. Elizabeth. This pious lady who died at the early 
age of twenty-four, in 1231, w^as the daughter of King 
Alexander of Hungary, and from her infancy was be- 
trothed to the Landgrave Louis of Thuringia, whom 
she married at the age of fourteen, making Marburg 
castle her home. Louis accompanied the Emperor 
Frederick Barbarossa to the Holy Land and died of 
a fever. She was subsequently driven away from Mar- 
burg, but afterward returned and devoted her brief 
life and her fortune to the poor and suffering. She 
bound herself by the rules of the Third Order of St. 
Francis and was canonized in 1235, the Franciscan 
nuns subsequently adopting her as their patroness, 
whence came their popular title of "Nuns of St. 
Elizabeth." The Emperor Frederick II. erected a 



348 THE RHINE. 

church as her shrine at Marburg, and in 1236, he, with 
the Archbishop of Mayence, translated her remains 
to the church with great pomp, many prelates . and 
thousands of pilgrims attending from all over Eu- 
rope. The Emperor personally placed a golden crown 
on her grave, and her shrine, afterward the mecca of 
armies of devotees, is quoted as the source of numer- 
ous miraculous cures. This early Gothic Church of 
St. Elizabeth, standing near the foot of the hill and 
recently restored, is the chief building of Marburg, 
its towers rising over three hundred feet. For three 
centuries the remains of the saint were piously kept 
in a copper-gilt and richly decorated sarcophagus, but, 
when the Eeformation came, the Landgrave Philip 
the Generous, to stop the pilgrimages, had them re- 
moved. The sarcophagus, which was much injured 
by the French, in the early nineteenth century, is still 
preserved in the church. There are also numer- 
ous monuments of Hessian and Thuringian princes. 
The great University of Marburg was founded by 
Philip the Generous in the sixteenth century. The 
old Schloss is well preserved, and in its Rittersaal, in 
1529, took place the debate at the invitation of Philip, 
in which the leaders of the Reformation endeavored to 
adjust their differences regarding the Eucharist, 
which was ineffective, owing to Luther's adherence 
to the precise words, "Hoc est corpus meum,'^ (this is 
my body) which he wrote in a bold hand upon the 
table. There are magnificent views from the castle 
terraces over the Lahn valley and the distant hills. 



THE SAAR AND THE MOSELLE. 349 



THE SAAR AND THE MOSELLE. 

To the westward of the Ehine, cut deeply down into 
the table land, is the ravine through which the Saar 
flows out northwest to the Moselle just above Treves. 
This river became famous as the scene of the earliest 
military operations of France when her armies in- 
vaded Germany and began the great war of 1870-71. 
The Saar rises in the defiles of the Vosges and drains 
its central portions, while the Moselle coming down 
past Metz, is farther westward. When the war opened 
the French army was stretched along the line of the 
then frontier from Metz to Strassburg, and Metz be- 
came the French headquarters, while Mayence was the 
German. N'apoleon III. took personal command of 
the French, and began hostilities by an armed recon- 
noissance over to the valley of the Saar. The Ger- 
mans were waiting for the French and this attack at 
the beginning of August, 1870, drove the German out- 
posts from Saarbriick, the temporary victory being de- 
scribed by the Emperor in a grandiloquent telegram to 
Paris announcing that the French Prince Imperial had 
had his "baptism of fire.^^ The success was short-lived, 
however, for the Germans immediately advanced all 
along the line, and on August 6th, defeated the French 
south of Saarbriick, gained victory after victory over 
the French, crowned by the catastrophe of Sedan, and 
in September were on their almost unopposed march 



350 THE RHINE. 

to Paris. The Saar comes northward to Saarbriick 
and then bends northwest. The old town and its mod- 
ern suburb of St. Johann, across the river, have many 
memorials of that momentous time, and the Eathhaus 
is decorated with frescoes illustrating the events of 
the campaign. Saarbriick is a great coal shipping 
place, the neighborhood being rich in coal measures. 
The hill of Spicheren, three miles southward was the 
scene of the battle of August 6th, the French en- 
trenched on its slopes having been driven out by the 
German attack. A tower overlooks the field, and in 
the town a statue of Bismarck, unveiled in 1899, 
adorns the public square. 

The Saar flows northwest among coal mines and 
factories to the old fortress of Saarlouis. This great 
work of A'^auban, constructed for Louis XIV. to en- 
able the French to hold the Saar in 1680, and named 
for the Grande Monarque, has been entirely super- 
seded, and is now only a military storehouse. Farther 
down is ancient Marciacum of the Frankish kings, 
now known as Merzig, with its twelfth century ba- 
silica, and be3^ond, the crooked Saar makes a long de- 
tour to the westward around the imposing heights of 
Montclair. At over a thousand feet elevation, the 
summit is crowned by the ruins of the old Montclair 
Castle, which the Elector of Treves destroyed in the 
fourteenth century. The Montclair promontory is cut 
down at its northern extremity by the deep ravine of 
the Saar, but across it, the hill rises still higher into 
the eminence of the Clef, nearly fifteen hundred feet 



THE 8AAR AND THE MOSELLE. 35 1 

high. This was the ancient clavis, or key to the river 
passage, and hence the name, a tower having formerly 
surmounted it. From the top there is a superb view 
over the curves of the river valley as they wind deep 
down below. The railroad, tunnelled through Mont- 
clair, comes out on the northern side, at Mettlach on 
the Saar, where the old Abbey of the Benedictines was 
founded in the eighth century by St. Ludvinus, its 
extensive buildings being now a pottery. Through 
magnificent scenery and most picturesque ravines, 
the Saar flows northward toward the Moselle, and near 
Serrig on a bold rock overhanging the river is the an- 
cient Klaus, the chapel which, in 1838, Frederick 
William IV. restored, to make it the depository of the 
remains of his ancestor, the blind King John of Bo- 
hemia, who was slain at the battle of Crecy, in 1346. 
The Leuk comes down a waterfall near Saarburg, and 
enters the Saar, which flows past Conz, and then en- 
ters the Moselle. Roman remains abound throughout 
the northern part of the valley, and there are ruins 
here of an imperial villa, Conz having been the Ro- 
man Contionacum. 

The river Moselle, rising in France on the western 
slope of the Vosges, comes circuitously northward past 
Metz, and turning northeast past Treves, flows into 
the Rhine at Coblentz. It is over three hundred miles 
long, much more than one-half its course being in 
France, but a direct line from its source to Coblentz 
is not over one hundred and seventy miles. Below 
Metz, the valley spreads out into broad bottom lands. 



352 THE RHINE. 

and it passes through a region of villages with mines 
and furnaces, but at Sierck about thirty miles below 
Metz, the hills again press upon the river, and it then 
flows through winding and picturesque ravines all the 
way to the Rhine. The entrance to the ravine at 
Sierck is commanded by the elaborate ruins of an old 
castle of the Dukes of Lorraine. At Nennig about 
seven miles farther down are the remains of a Eo- 
man villa, where has been excavated one of the finest 
mosaic pavements existing, of highly artistic execu- 
tion, and representing a gladiatorial combat, with sur- 
rounding medallions of animals, musicians and other 
figures. Its area is over sixteen hundred square feet. 
Just above the confluence with the Saar, at Igel, is 
another interesting Eoman memorial, the noted Igel 
Monument, known as the "Heidenthurm^^ or Heath- 
en's Tower. It is a square column of sandstone, about 
seventy-five feet high, which was built for a funeral 
monument by a wealthy family of merchants, named 
the Secundini, and dates from the third century. In- 
teresting mythological reliefs cover it, and there are 
various inscriptions, some, however, so worn by time 
as to be illegible. 

ANCIENT TREVES. 

Just beyond the confluence of the Moselle and the 
Saar, sixty-six miles below Metz, and about seventy 
miles from Coblentz, is the ancient and famous city 
of Treves, the German Trier, upon the southeastern- 



ANCIENT TREVES. 353 

bank of the Moselle. This venerable town is the 
greatest antique in Germany, and when it was begun 
no one accurately knows. Upon the old Rathhaus, in 
the central Market Place, there is a Latin inscription 
indicating that "Treviris" was here thirteen centuries 
before Rome, thus referring to the tradition that the 
town was founded by Trebeta, the son of Xinus, king 
of Assyria. When Caesar came he found it a flourish- 
ing settlement of the Treveri, a Belgic-Gallic tribe, 
and made it a military post commanding the Moselle. 
The Emperor Augustus greatly developed it as the 
Roman colony of Augusta Treverorum, Diocletian 
made it the Belgic capital, and successive Roman 
emperors lived here. It became a great stronghold 
of the Roman empire, and the result is that it now dis- 
plays the most elaborate and finest relics of the Ro- 
man domination, north of the Alps. When Christi- 
anity was introduced in the fourth century, by Con- 
stantine, Agricius came from Antioch as the first 
bishop, and from then until the close of the eighteenth 
century it was ruled by bishops, archbishops and elec- 
tors in the regular succession, some of them becoming 
most powerful princes and controlling minds in Euro- 
pean politics. The last Elector, Clemens Wenceslaus 
transferred his capital to Coblentz in 1786. The 
French captured Treves in 1794, and in 1815 it was 
made part of Prussia, thus coming into the German 
empire. 

Its position is picturesque, the red sandstone walls 
and numerous towers and steeples of the ancient 

23 



354 THE RHINE. 

town rising compactly from the fertile plain along- 
side the river^ enclosed by an amphitheatre of vine- 
clad and timbered hillslopes. From the eminence' 
across the Moselle, there is a magnificent view over the 
venerable city. Farther np the river is the old bridge, 
some of its buttresses having been built by the Eo- 
mans. When the French came here in 1689, they blew 
up two of the arches, but the whole bridge has been re- 
cently restored and widened. The city was surrounded 
with strong walls, originally built by the Romans, and 
extended during the middle ages. In the line of the 
walls on the northern side is the finest of the Roman 
structures, the old town-gate of the Porta Nigra, 
built in the fourth century. It is constructed in three 
stories, over ninety feet high, of huge sandstone 
blocks, fastened with iron braces, and has two gate- 
ways pierced through, the openings twent3'-three feet 
high, while the whole structure is one hun- 
dred and fifteen feet long. This was a for- 
tified city gate, the exterior closed by port- 
cullis, and defended by two towers. The 
walls with which it was connected, are gone, but there 
are traces of the junction, and a doorway on the west- 
ern side remains, which led out to the ramparts. We 
are told that in the eleventh centurv, Simeon, a her- 
mit, lived in one of the towers, and after his death 
it was used for two churches, one above the other, the 
odor of sanctity still clinging to the tower. In recent 
years, the whole structure has been thoroughly re- 
stored to its original condition as nearly as possible. 



ANCIENT TREVES. 355 

and there is now within, a museum of Eoman antiqui- 
ties. In the southeastern part of the city is the Ba- 
silica, also a Eoman construction dating from the 
time of Constantine, much of the original building re- 
maining, though portions are comparatively modern. 
This is of brick, about two hundred and twenty-five 
feet long, one hundred feet wide and nearly as high. 
It is similar to the ancient structures in Kome and 
elscAvhere, which were used for the administration of 
justice and for business purposes, and in the middle 
ages became the headquarters of the archbishops and 
electors. The Emperor Frederick William lY., in 
1856, had it consecrated as a church. The interior is 
imposing, being lighted by double rows of windows and 
terminating in an apse at the northern end with the 
main entrance at the south. The Khedive of Egypt 
presented Frederick William with a tabernacle hav- 
ing four columns of yellow African marble which is 
over the altar. 

The Cathedral of Treves is among the oldest Ger- 
man churches, and also is partially a Eoman survival, 
the exterior showing on the northern side, the Eoman 
work in bricks and red sandstone, and the subsequent 
building of brick and limestone by Archbishop Poppo 
in the eleventh century, and his successors. The an- 
cient chroniclers say this was originally a basilica of 
the fourth century built by the Emperor Valentinian, 
as wide as, but not so long as the present structure, 
and that in the Eoman period it was changed to a 
Christian church. There then stood in the centre, 



356 THE RHINE. 

four large granite columns^ connected by arches, some 
remains of them being preserved in the cloister-gar- 
dens. The Franks partly destroyed it, but there was a 
partial restoration, and then the Normans devastated 
it, when Archbishop Poppo began his thorough re- 
storation, at the same time extending its western end 
in the original style of the Eoman structure with 
a terminal apse on that end. An eastern apse was 
subsequently added; then the nave and aisles were 
vaulted, and in the seventeenth century was built a 
circular dome-surmounted treasury. Much old Eo- 
man and Prankish work in columns, arches and capi- 
tals is shown in the interior. There are within, the 
tombs of twenty-six archbishops and electors. Among 
the monuments is that of Archbishop Baldwin, brother 
of Henry VIL; while the two finest commemorate 
Johann III., who died in 1540, and Elector Richard 
von Greiffenklau, the successful opponent of the Re- 
formation, who died in 1531. Yery curiously, on the 
latter are portrait medallions of Richard, and of his 
most violent foe, the redoubtable Pranz von Sickin- 
gen, the lord of Ebenburg on the E'ahe, his strong- 
hold always being a safe refuge for the Reformation 
chiefs. The high altar is imposing and the steps are 
adorned with statues of Constantine and his mother, 
the Empress St. Helena. This cathedral contains va- 
rious prized relics, among them Romanesque reliqua- 
ries, a nail from the True Cross, and, most revered of 
all, the famous "Holy Coat," without seam, which at- 
tracts great numbers of pilgrims, and is kept in a 



ANCIENT TREVES. 357 

closed chapel near the high altar, being only exhibited 
on rare occasions. When the Empress Helena visited 
Jerusalem, and brought back the many relics of the 
Saviour, she gave this seamless coat, said to have been 
worn by Him, to the city of Treves. It was displayed 
in early times at the consecration of Archbishops, and 
is recorded as the source of many miracles. 

Near the Cathedral is the Liebfrauenkirche, an in- 
teresting early Gothic structure of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, built almost as a circle about one hundred and 
eighty feet long and one hundred and fifty feet wide, 
rising over one hundred and twenty feet high, and 
having in the interior a lofty vaulted cross structure 
supported by twelve slender pillars. Each of these 
pillars is adorned with a painted figure of an apostle^ 
and standing on a slab let into the pavement just 
within the entrance, the visitor can see them all at 
once. The interior is also elaborately decorated, and 
contains many tombs of prelates, and the mummy of 
Bishop Theodulf, who lived in the sixth century. 

At the southeastern corner of the old town, and 
south of the Basilica, is another relic, the ancient Ro- 
man palace, an extensive group of ruins. This struc- 
ture in mediaeval times was both a fortress and a 
church, and it has recently been partly excavated, 
disclosing various rooms and passages. An elaborate 
tower rises from it. Some distance eastward, on ele- 
vated ground, is the Roman amphitheatre, surrounded 
by vineyards and well-preserved. Its area is about one 
acre, and it could accommodate eight thousand 



358 THE RHINE. 

people. Farther eastward a hill rises, and it is built 
into the lower rocky slope. The Emperor Trajan is 
reported to have been the builder, while during Oon- 
stantine's reign, there were repeated barbarous sac- 
rifices in the arena of Frankish and other captives, 
butchered by the soldiers, and torn to pieces by wild 
beasts for the popular amusement. There are also ex- 
tensive remains of the ancient Eoman baths, on the 
western side of the town near the river. With such 
ample richness in Eoman survivals, it is natural that 
Treves should have a most excellent Museum of An- 
tiquities, and for these an imposing red sandstone 
building has recently been erected. There are also ex- 
tensive collections of paintings and industrial and art 
objects. The Gymnasium contains a fine library with 
several rare books and ancient manuscripts. To the 
southward of the town and not far from the river, is 
the old Church of St. Matthew, built in the twelfth 
century, a pilgrimage shrine which is said to contain 
the Saint^s sarcophagus. Upon a spot marked by a 
cross, to the northward of Treves, at St. Paullin, the 
early Christians of the place suffered martyrdom, and 
a church was built there in the eighteenth century. 

TREVES TO COBLENTZ. 

The picturesque and winding valley of the Moselle 
below Treves is mostly a deep ravine cut down in the 
table land, with rich development of fertility in the 
bottom lands, and attractive scenery. It resembles 



TREVES TO COBLENTZ. 359 

the Ehine, being bordered by wooded and vine-clad 
slopes, towering crags and smiling villages, with time- 
worn ruins of ancient castles dotted about on points 
of vantage, where in the olden time their chieftains 
ruled supreme. The prevalent rocks are sandstones 
and rugged slates, and among these, the noted Mo- 
selle wines are grown, being prized for their delicate 
and aromatic flavor. The Roman poet, Ausonius, in 
the beginning of the fourth century, sang the praises 
of this charming valley in his poem, Mosella. The re- 
gion is also rich in historical associations extending 
back to the early time. The ravines of the lower river 
reaches, are cut deeply down between the elevated 
plateaus of the Hundsriick and the Eifel, the latter to 
the northward being a bleak and barren waste, largely 
of volcanic origin. The Moselle is very crooked, and 
between Treves and Coblentz, covers a distance al- 
most twice as long as the railway down its valley, 
which by skillful engineering and many tunnels and 
viaducts manages to pierce the hills and cross the ra- 
vines, thus shortening the distances around the great 
river bends. The valley is prolific in Eoman remains, 
many of the villages dating from that era and having 
derivative Roman names. Thus Quint was derived 
from Quintum, the fifth Roman milestone from 
Treves, and Detzam from decimum, the tenth mile- 
stone. Riol was Rigodulum, to which Tacitus re- 
fers, where the Romans, in the year 70 under Cerealis, 
conquered the Treveri and captured Valentinus, their 
chief. The Roman Noviomagus, where Constantine 



360 THE RHINE. 

had a palace and there was a strong fortress built^ 
which has recently been disclosed by excavations, is 
now ISTenmagen. The river is tortuous, the hill-slopes 
are prolific in vineyards, and thus it comes to the pic- 
turesque old town and wine-market of Berncastel, 
crowded into the narrow valley of the Tiefenbach, 
famous for its cliif formations. Here is grown the 
wine known as the "Berncasteler Doctor," and across 
the river at Cues is the hospital founded by its fa- 
mous and learned citizen. Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus. 
Vineyards cover the hillsides, and ruined castles 
crown their summits, as we go down this crooked but 
highly attractive river. The old Grafenberg rises 
above Trarbach, a famous castle built by the Countess 
Laurette from the ransom she obtained from Arch- 
bishop Baldwin of Treves about the middle of the 
fourteenth century. This vigorous lady owned Stark- 
enburg castle farther down the river, and capturing 
the proud Archbishop who tried to deprive her of 
her rights, she imprisoned him and got a large sum for 
his liberation. The ruins of Starkenburg are on the 
crags high above the river, while over on the opposite 
side, rises the Trabener Berg, where Louis XIV. built 
his fortress of Montroyal. The river makes various 
semicircular curves both above and below and the view 
from the hilltop is fine. Not far beyond, the Moselle 
has a double loop as it approaches and then encircles 
the ponderous Marienberg, a long ridge rising nearly 
four hundred feet, which in its broadest part ascends 
to the higher summit of the Barl, over nine hundred 



TREVES TO COBLENTZ. 361 

fejst. This great loop of the river goes nearly eight 
miles around the Barl, yet the neck of the long penin- 
sula is barely one-third of a mile wide. On the Mari- 
enburg are the ruins of an old castle and nunnery, 
and from the top there are superb views all around the 
horizon, over , the winding reaches of the river with 
their green slopes and forest, and the higher distant 
summits beyond. Here come in the romantic valleys 
of the Alf and its tributary, the Uesbach, and up the 
latter are the medicinal springs of Bertrich, where 
relics attest their original occupancy by the Eomans. 
Near by is the grotto of the Kaskeller, the "cheese 
cellar," surrounded by basaltic columns of piled-up 
spheroids, their resemblance to cheeses having given 
the name. 

The Moselle, below, makes another encircling loop 
around the Petersberg, and here on the hill are the 
ruins of the monastery of Stuben, dating from the 
twelfth century. At the extremity of the curve on 
the hillsides above the bank at Bremm, the vine is 
said to have been first planted on this part of the river. 
Beyond this loop, the Moselle describes some remark- 
able gyrations. It goes far south, and zigzags back 
and forth a half-dozen times, then comes north again, 
and thus manages to encircle the ponderous mass of 
the Ellererberg, going about twelve miles around it, 
and coming north to Cochem, where the railroad 
emerges which has gone straight across the peninsula 
by a tunnel through the hill. This is the great Em- 
peror William tunnel, two and one-half miles long. The 



362 THE RHINE. 

old Castle of Cochem is on the hill top in a magnificerit 
position. The French destroyed it in 1689, thus ruin- 
ing a famous stronghold of the Archbishops of Treves, 
but after an interval of two centuries it was restored, 
and is now one of the chief show places of this noted 
valley. Up the romantic gorge of the Ender, a short 
distance away, is the Winneburg, the ancient seat of 
the Metternich family. Only a tower remains, as the 
French also destroyed it in 1689. At the southern ex- 
tremity of the Moselle curve are the ruins of Beilstein 
castle, which the Franks demolished at the same time, 
this also having been a stronghold of Treves. After 
making all these gyrations, the river doubles about 
again toward the eastward seeking the Ehine, passing 
more ruined castles and religious houses of mediaeval 
days. At Garden, is the cave, where the missionary, 
St. Castor, came and dwelt in the fourth century, 
converting the people to Christianity, and founding a 
church, which was superseded in the twelfth century 
by the present Abbey Church. Below at Moselkern, 
comes in the little Eltz, through a deep and winding 
ravine on the northern side. Up this valley is Schloss 
Eltz, the ancient stronghold of the Counts of Eltz, 
which was begun in the twelfth century, and extended 
afterward. They were usually in a feud with Treves, 
and on the opposite hill are the ruins of Baldeneltz, 
which Archbishop Baldwin built to combat them. 
South of the Moselle, just below, is the finest ruin on 
the river, the Ehrenburg on an isolated summit, its 
towers commanding a splendid outlook. 



TREVES TO COBLENTZ. 363 

We now come to Aiken, with interesting remains 
of the ancient fortifications, on the southern bank, 
having upon a commanding eminence the towers of 
famous Thuron, which Heinrich, then the Count Pala- 
tine, built at the end of the twelfth century, the bet- 
ter to hold his domain. The Archbishops of Cologne 
and Treves, alwa3's wanted to possess this independent 
outpost of the Palatinate, thus advanced to the bor- 
der of the Moselle, which they regarded as particularly 
their own, and in 1246, thev bes^an its sieafe which 
lasted over two years. The chief record of the attack 
now remaining, is that during the operations the as- 
sailants consumed six hundred thousand gallons of 
wine. All the streams coming in through the lateral 
ravines, are bordered by mills, as they furnish excel- 
lent water-powers, and thus have developed much 
manufacturing. Gondorf, on the northern bank, has 
ample Eoman remains, and is supposed to have been 
the Eoman port of Contrua. Just below is Cobern, 
commanded by two castles of the knights formerly 
ruling it. High hills compress the river which makes 
a grand semicircular bend, and here is the impressive 
hexagonal chapel of St. Matthias, dating from 1230. 
This chapel was patterned after the church of the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the returning Crusad- 
ers having greatly admired it. The sides measure 
fifty feet from angle to angle, and it is elaborately 
decorated, the central portion supported by six col- 
umns, rising higher than the rest. The Emperor 
William recently had this fine chapel thoroughly re- 



364 THE RHINE. 

stored. High and precipitous rocks encompass the 
northwestern bank of the Moselle, below Cobern, every 
available portion of them being planted with vines, 
which flourish under the southern summer suns that 
heat their rocky environment. Various villages are 
passed, the hills are covered with vines and the flat 
land with orchards and gardens, and thus the charm- 
ing Moselle comes to the Rhine at Coblentz. 

PICTURESQUE COBLENTZ. 

There are few scenes in nature more magnificent 
than the superb surroundings of the junction of the 
Moselle and the Ehine — the Confluentes of the Ro- 
mans. The Moselle coming out from the southwest 
bends toward the east to enter the greater river, and 
on the flat and triangular tongue of land between, 
Coblentz is built. Over opposite, above the railwa}^ at 
its base, boldly rises the towering rock of Ehrenbreit- 
stein, the ^^road stone of honor," fully commanding 
the town and both rivers, and southward one looks up 
the picturesque ravine enclosing the Rhine, until the 
curving hills beyond make the superb background. 
Everywhere are forts and batteries, for this is one of 
the great fortresses of Europe, and high above the 
isolated rock floats the German flag. In the maze of 
fortifications, drawbridges, towers and galleries on the 
precipitous sides of the cliff, a long flight of steps ex- 
tends up from the river bank, and there is also a 
gradually ascending roadway, encircling it, and reach- 



PICTURESQUE COBLENTZ. 365 

ing the top around on the land side at the back. All 
the hills adjacent are covered with defensive works, 
and the low-lying quay and esplanade fronting Cob- 
lentz, with the superb monument and rows of build- 
ings, are protected by towers and water-batteries, while 
everywhere, and far inland on the distant hills, can- 
non bristle, and the gray stone facings of the defen- 
sive works peep out amid the foliage. This enormous 
fortress has been the key to the river of the Father- 
land, and here Germany truly keeps the ^'Wacht am 
Ehein.'^ The city of Coblentz, which has about forty 
thousand population, and an excellent trade in the 
sparkling wines of the district, is the capital of Ehen- 
ish Prussia. It is a triangular city, two sides formed 
by the rivers which join at the apex, while the base 
was anciently a line of fortifications built across the 
peninsula between the rivers, now being replaced by 
a fine boulevard. The whole system of defensive 
works at Coblentz includes twenty-six separate forts, 
and forms a fortified camp capable of containing a 
hundred thousand men. Since the close of the Franco- 
German war advanced the frontier westward so that 
Alsace and Lorraine were annexed, Coblentz has oc- 
cupied a position somewhat secondary, in the plan of 
German defence, to the now frontier fortresses of 
Strassburg, Metz, Mayence and Cologne. The old 
town walls have been removed and many improve- 
ments have recently been made. 

The Eoman military post of Confluentes is said to 
have been originally established by Drusus, about the 



366 THE RHINE. 

year 9 B, C. The Eoman military road down the 
Ehine was constructed and the ancient Castellum 
controlling it was near the Moselle, while recently the 
remains of the Eoman bridge of piles carrying the 
road over, were discovered in that river. There have 
been numerous Eoman tombstones found along its 
route. The Franks got possession upon the Eoman 
downfall, but the place had little history until the 
formation of the Confederation of Ehenish Towns. 
French and German tenure alternated during the 
numerous wars, but after Xapoleon's abdication it be- 
came Prussian and has thus since remained. The im- 
posing equestrian monument to Emperor William I., 
seen from afar, is the crowning attraction of the 
Deutsche Eck, as the low point of land is called, at the 
junction of the rivers. [N'ear by is the ancient Church 
of St. Castor, which was the shrine of that patron 
saint, and missionary of the Moselle. It was founded 
in the ninth centur}^, but mostly built afterward, hav- 
ing been consecrated in the early thirteenth century. 
This old Eomanesque building has four towers and an 
apse, being well seen from the river, as it fronts on 
the quay. Its chief monument is that of Kuno von 
Falkenstein, the famous Archbishop of Treves at the 
height of its power, during the fourteenth century. 
The extensive Palace of Coblentz, known as the 
Schloss, is of comparatively modern construction, and 
fronts upon the river. It was built near the close of 
the eighteenth century for the last Elector of Treves, 
Clemens Wenceslaus. It has since been usuallv the 



PICTURESQUE COBLENTZ. 367 

seat of government. Xear by a fine bridge crosses the 
Rhine, while to the southward a grand promenade 
has been constructed for a long distance upon the 
river bank. The land beyond rises into the two emi- 
nences overlooking the valley, of Eittersturz, and the 
Kiihkopf, the latter over twelve hundred feet high, 
and commanding a superb view. There are various 
prehistoric remains on this ridge, and distinct traces 
to the southward of a Roman Temple to Mercury. 

Among the interesting monuments in and near Cob- 
lentz, are the statue of General von Goeben, a leader 
in the Franco-German war, and the pyramidal monu- 
ment near the foot of the fortified Petersburg on the 
Moselle, to the young French heroes of the later eigh- 
teenth century. Generals Marceau and Hoche, orig- 
inally interred there together. Coblentz was captured 
by Marceau in 1794, and he fell mortally wounded at 
the battle of Altenkirchen, northeast of Coblentz, 
where the French, under Kleber, defeated the x\us- 
trians in September, 1796, Marceau dying three days 
afterward, at the age of twenty-seven. He was in- 
terred at Coblentz, his funeral attended by detach- 
ments from both armies, but his remains were re- 
moved in 1889 to the Pantheon in Paris. General 
Hoche, who participated in several victories over the 
Austrians in the same series of campaigns, died in 
1797, at Wetzlar on the Lahn, from the effects of poi- 
son, aged twenty-nine. M. Thiers has described Mar- 
ceau, Hoche, Kleber and Desaix — all youthful leaders 
of French armies, after the Revolution, as French- 



368 THE RHINE. 

men, whose glory was not lessened because they did 
not live to become marshals, for they had the honor 
of dying citizens and freemen. Byron has thus de- 
scribed the monument : 

"By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, 

There is a small and simple pyramid, 
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; 

Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, 

Our enemy's — but let not that forbid 
Honor to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb 

Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid 
Lamenting, and yet envying such a doom, 
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. 

"Brief, brave and glorious was his young career, — 

His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes; 
And fitly may the stranger lingering here 

Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose; 

For he was Freedom's champion, one of those, 
The few in number, who had not o'erstept 

The charter to chastise, which she bestows 
On such as wield her weapons; he had kept 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept." 

POWERFUL EHRENBKEITSTEIN". 

From Coblentz, the ancient bridge of boats, about 
twelve hundred feet long, floats upon the surface of 
the river and carries the traveller over to the rock of 
Ehrenbreitstein. When vessels are to pass through, 
the boats are moved out of the channel way, and then 
replaced again. A deep valley on the eastern bank is 
cut down between the two cliffs of Ehrenbreitstein, 



POWERFUL EHRENBREITSTEIN. 369 

iind Asterstein, to the southward, a village nestling on 
ihe hillslopes between, and steep roads lead up the ra- 
vine to the top on either side. When this great fort- 
ress began no one has recorded, but the castle orig- 
inally occupying the summit was presented by the 
Frankish King Dagobert, in 636, to the Archbishop 
of Treves. The precipitous rock is connected with the 
neighboring elevations, only on the northern side. 
There are ranges of lower works along the river, and 
the upper fort contains a large stock of arms. The 
neighboring hill of Asterstein is also completely for- 
tified. These formidable fortifications in the midst of 
the most exquisite scenery, were long the chief strong- 
hold of the Archbishop of Treves. Though often be- 
sieged, the rock has only been captured twice, first by 
stratagem, and afterward by starvation, but never 
by actual force. It is said to be so arranged now, that 
a garrison of five thousand troops can hold it, and 
there can be stored ten years' provisions for eight 
thousand men in the capacious magazines. The first 
capture was by the French in 1631, but the Arch- 
bishops got it back. In 1688, Vauban personally di- 
rected the operations of the French against it, when 
Louis XIV. journeyed hither from Paris to witness 
its downfall, but it held out successfully and the 
Grande Monarque had to return home disappointed. 
This was almost the only place that escaped the atroci- 
ties and devastation committed in that terrible cam- 
paign along the Ehine. In 1799, the French, after a 
protracted and desperate siege, starved out the garri- 

24 



370 THE RHINE. 

son, and got possession, holding it until after the 
peace of Lnneville, when they had to evacuate. Be- 
fore retiring, however, they blew it np, making a 
wholesale destruction. To this event Byron has a 
poetical allusion : 

"Here Ehrenbreitstein, %Yith her shattered wall, 
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height 

Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 
Rebounding idly on her strength did light: 
A tower of victory! from whence the flight 

Of baffled foes was watched along the plain: 

But Peace destroyed what War could never blight, 

And laid these proud roofs bare to summer's rain, — 

On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain." 

Upon the downfall of Xapoleon, the French paid 
about $3,000,000 to Prussia for the damage thus done, 
and its restoration begun in 1816 required ten years 
for completion. Since the Franco-German war, there 
has been a complete re-arrangement of the works 
on modern lines, and it is defended by batteries num- 
bering about four hundred guns, while three lines of 
defences cross the neck of the promontory. The ex- 
tensive flat surface on top of the rock, is a parade 
ground; and from the front there is a superb view. 
On the projecting terrace of Fort Asterstein on the 
Pfaifendorfer Hohe, the elevated hill to the south- 
ward, and high above the Ehine, there is an attrac- 
tive obelisk in memory of the German soldiers belong- 
ing to the Eighth Army Corps, who fell in the war 
with Austria in 1866. 



COBLENTZ TO LINZ. 37 1 



COBLENTZ TO LINZ. 

Below Coblentz, the Rhine valley broadens, the hills 
retreat from the river, and its channel widens with 
pleasant banks lined by villages and gardens, the ra- 
vine closing in again, however, at Andernach. The 
river sweeps in grand curve beyond the Moselle, from 
north around to the northwest, passing the long island 
of Niederwerth, where Edward III. lived in the four- 
teenth century during much of his continental cam- 
paigns. There comes in on the right hand the beauti- 
ful valley of the Sayn, with foundries on its banks, 
and old castles dotted about on the bordering hills. 
Here Julius Caesar made his second crossing of the 
Ehine, upon a bridge built by his soldiers, and recently 
there have been found remains of the piles in the 
channel, and also two extensive Roman camps on the 
left bank. Below, at Weissenthurm, is the old square 
watch tower, built in 1370, which guarded the boun- 
dary of the domain of the Archbishops of Treves, ad- 
joining the lands of the Archbishops of Cologne. An 
obelisk here commemorates Hoche's crossing of the 
Rhine in 1797, just before his unexpected death at 
Wetzlar on the Lahn. Beyond, on the opposite bank, 
is Neuwied, a busy manufacturing town, having the 
spacious Palace of the Prince of Wied, which dis- 
plays a collection of Roman antiquities. This is a 
home of the Moravian Brothers, the followers of 



372 THE RHINE. 

John Huss, who after their expulsion from Moravia 
came numerously here on invitation of the Prince. 
Their settlement is prosperous, and they are popularly 
known as the "Quakers of Germany." 

A bend to the north, and another back to the north- 
west through the fertile plain, bring the river again to 
the enclosing hills, at the picturesque old town of An- 
dernach, with its ancient walls and quaint mediaeval 
towers. When Drusus constructed his chain of defen- 
sive forts along the Ehine frontier, he made one here 
at Antunnacum to guard the passage of the river de- 
file just below. It was always a fortress, compact and 
picturesque, and exists to-day as it has for centuries, 
with its gates and church and river watch towers, 
survivals of the rule of the Franks, and Germans and 
of the Archbishops of Cologne who got possession in 
the fifteenth century. The French burnt it in 1688, 
and have left grim reminders in the breach made in 
the side of the watch tower, and the spacious ruins of 
the Castle of the Archbishops, on the northern verge 
of the town. The lofty watch tower was built in the 
fifteenth century, and was used as a toll-gatherer on 
passing vessels. The old church, with its four towers, 
two high at one end and two lower at the other end, 
dates from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; it is 
without a transept, and bears the arms of the town, 
the Empire, and Cologne, on the vaulting of the nave. 
The best description of old Andernach is by Victor 
Hugo, who looked out upon it from his window, when 
he visited the Ehine. "I have before me at the foot 



COBLENTZ TO LINZ. 373 

of a steep hill, which allows me to see but a narrow 
strip of sky, a beautiful tower of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, from which rises a charming complication, which 
I have never seen elsewhere — a lesser octagonal tower, 
crowned by a conical roof. On my right is the Rhine, 
and the pretty white village of Leutesdorf, seen among 
trees. On my left are the four Byzantine towers of 
a magnificent church of the eleventh century, two at 
the portals, two at the apse. The two great towers 
of the portals have an outline, unusual, but fine. 
They are square towers capped by four triangular 
gables. Under my window gather in perfect harmony, 
fowls, ducks and children; and a little farther off, 
peasants are busy among their vines." The mountains 
compress the river just north of the town, and the 
lofty Krahnenberg with its wooded slopes making a 
bold buttress on the western bank, is ascended by a 
cable railway. 

In the defile, on the eastern side is the massive rock 
of Hammerstein, crowned with the ruins of the castle 
where Henry IV. lived in 1105, when he sought 
refuge from his persecuting son Henry V. The Arch- 
bishops of Cologne were usually at war with the own- 
ers of this castle and destroyed it in 1660. Back 
among the hills to the eastward are the chain of forts 
built by Drusus. Most of the slopes in sunny situa- 
tions bear vineyards. Almost opposite Hammerstein 
rises the precipitous Fornicher Kopf, over a thousand 
feet, and commanding a magnificent view; this is an 
extinct volcano. Below are the ruins of old Rheineck 



374 THE RHINE. 

castle, built in the twelfth century and one of the fa- 
mous guardians of this pass, whose knightly owners 
lived off the booty got from the river. It was a pon- 
derous work, and required three successive campaigns 
to destroy, being attacked by the French in 1689, by 
Cologne in 1692, and finally burnt in 1785. Even 
then there survived a great square tower sixty-five 
feet high, which now remains as the southern side of 
a fine modern chateau. Pleasant villages border the 
river farther down, and on the western side the hills 
begin to recede, leaving a fertile plain at the river 
bank. Schloss Arenfels, built by the doughty Henry 
of Isenberg, rises on the eastern bank, having been 
lately restored, and farther along is the ancient forti- 
fied village of Linz, surrounded by high hills, whose 
vineyard-dotted slopes yield good red wines. These 
basalt rocks are extensively quarried and one of the 
quarries, in the high Minderberg, is a spacious hall 
surrounded by the basaltic prismatic columns, square 
and hexagonal, varying from three to ten inches in 
diameter and sometimes twenty feet high. They 
give, when struck, a clear metallic ring. The 
summit over the quarry, nearly thirteen hundred feet 
above the Ehine, gives a grand view along the river. 
These basaltic cliffs spread at the edge of the 
water, with brooks cutting down deep ravines in the 
range, while high above Linz on the protruding rock 
to the northward, jutting out toward the Ehine, are 
the ivy-clad ruins of the old Schloss Ockenfels, of 
rauhritter renown in mediaeval days. 



ST. APOLLINARIS. 375 



ST. APOLLINARIS. 

The deep intervale of the little Ahr conies into the 
Ehine almost opposite Linz, expanding into the fruit- 
ful region as it approaches the river, which is known 
as the "Goldene Meil.^' Here at the edge of the hills 
from which the Ahr emerges, and some distance back 
of the Ehine is the Eoman Sentiacum, now known as 
Sinzig, where once was a Prankish castle, and after- 
ward an Imperial Schloss. The ancient walls still 
partly surround the town, while the thirteenth century 
church stands picturesquely. A short distance be- 
yond and farther up the Ahr, among the hills, is the 
village of Neuenahr, which has become an attractive 
watering place from its group of five soda springs that 
pour out warm water impregnated with soda and car- 
bonic acid gas, to run off in copious stream to the 
river. The castle, whose scant ruins overlook the 
place from a neighboring eminence, was built in the 
thirteenth century by Otto von Are, but his line be- 
came extinct in the next century, and then the Arch- 
bishop Siegfried of Cologne smashed his castle in 
1371. Below the mouth of the Ahr, on the Ehine, and 
beyond the intervening range of hills separating the 
two valleys, is Eemagen, the Eoman Eigomagus. It 
was of importance in the middle ages, and stands 
pleasantly in front of the two ponderous heights of 
the Victoriaberg and the Apollinarisberg, the vil- 



376 '-THE RHINE. 

lage nestling along the river bank and in a ravine be- 
tween them. There are several churches here, among 
them an old one of the thirteenth century, having, ad- 
joining a detached Romanesque portal, once belong- 
ing to a palace that has disappeared; and also a beau- 
tiful modern church on a hill, which stands on the 
site of the original Eemagen church and pilgrimage 
shrine. This is the Apollinaris Kirche built in 1839. 
The whole of this pleasant region is filled with 
memories of St. Apollinaris. Caius Sollius, Apolli- 
naris Sidonius, was a native of Gaul, born in 430 at 
Lyons, and he excelled in poetry and polite literature. 
He married the daughter of the Eoman Emperor 
Avitus, was subsequently made governor of Eome and 
a Senator, but tiring of earthly honors he devoted 
himself to the church, was made bishop of Clermont 
and Ravenna and dying about 48.2, was afterward ca- 
nonized. His works shed much light upon the politi- 
cal and literary history of the fifth century. The 
story goes that when the Emperor Frederick Barbar- 
ossa captured Constantinople in the twelfth century, 
he obtained many sacred relics which he presented to 
the most powerful ecclesiastical potentate then in his 
domain. Archbishop Reinold von Dassel of Cologne. 
These were brought over the Alps and to the Rhine, 
being placed on a vessel to sail down the river to Co- 
logne. Now it so happened that the vessel, when op- 
posite Remagen, was miraculously stopped and could 
not be moved further. The Archbishop had aboard 
the head of Apollinaris, and relics of St. Felix and St. 



ST. APOLLINARIS. 377 

ISTarbor, with the remains of the three Magi, and un- 
able to ascertain the cause of the stoppage, the Arch- 
bishop prayed that the Saints would more clearly 
manifest their wishes. Then the vessel slowly moved 
from the middle of the stream toward Eemagen and 
the bells of the church there began ringing of them- 
selves. This ringing continued indefinitely, when the 
relics were carefully lifted out of the shrine one after 
the other, and when the head of St. Apollinaris was 
exposed, the bell-ringing ceased. This was interpreted 
to mean that the Saint desired to rest at Eemagen. 
There he was left and the ship no longer checked, 
passed onward to Cologne. The head was placed in a 
chapel on the hillside of the Apollinarisberg. Since 
then the relics have undergone many vicissitudes, but 
w^hat remains is in the crypt of the new church in an 
ancient sarcophagus. In the frescoes adorning the 
church, the story of St. Apollinaris is illustrated. In 
one transept, the picture represents the statue of Ju- 
piter, at the prayer of the saint, falling from its ped- 
estal in the presence of the Eoman Emperor; in the 
other transept, St. Apollinaris restores to life the 
daughter of the Governor of Eavenna. 

Back in the valley of the Ahr, not far away, is the 
massive basaltic cliff of the Landskron, having on its 
summit the ruins of the castle founded by the Em- 
peror Philip of Hohenstaufen in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, to check Archbishop Bruno of Cologne. Springs 
impregnated with carbonic acid gas come out of the 
base of this hill, and a little farther up is the famous 



378 THE RHINE. 

Apollinarisbrunnen, the spring whence comes the 
Apollinaris water so well known throughout the 
world. It is owned by a company which ships the 
waters in enormous quantities from Eemagen. The 
spring was discovered in 1851, and it is said that the 
owner of a vineyard alongside the Ahr, having noticed 
that the vines would not flourish in a particular spot, 
made an examination and found that carbonic acid 
gas issued from crevices in the ground. Geologists 
suggested that a mineral spring might be there, and a 
well was sunk about forty feet, which reached it, the 
waters rising to the surface much like a geyser. It is 
highly charged with gas, and the outflow is so copious 
that forty millions of bottles could be filled in a year, 
the present export being about one-half that number. 
The basaltic cliffs are numerous in this region, and on 
the eastern bank of the Ehine, opposite Eemagen, 
rises one of the most impressive, the Erpeler Lei, oveir 
five hundred feet above the river. It is hollowed out 
into quarries and has vineyards planted in crevices of 
the basalt. 

The river Ahr comes down through a deep and nar- 
row ravine with most picturesque scenery, out of the 
barren plateau of the Eifel. Villages nestle in cozy 
situations along its shores and fifteen miles up is Al- 
tenahr, with its old castle, dating from the tenth cen- 
tury, rising high above the village on a jagged cliff at 
nearly a thousand feet elevation. Here lived the an- 
cient Counts of Are, and-^fterward the Counts of 
Hochstaden, whose last scion was the Archbishop 



ST. APOLLINARIS. 379 

Conrad of Cologne, who founded the great cathedral in 
that city in 1248. This castle was a powerful strong- 
hold for Cologne, but the French ultimately got it in 
1690 and it was destroyed. About ten miles south- 
ward, farther up the valley, and overlooking the Ahr, 
near Adenau, are the highest peaks of the Eifel, the 
Nurburg, to the south, twenty-two hundred feet high, 
and to the eastward, the crowning Hohe Acht, rising 
twenty-five hundred feet, and having a view extending 
northward to the Cologne Cathedral, and eastward to 
the Ehine. ISTearly all the Eifel peaks are extinct vol- 
canoes, and much of the surface between the Ehine 
and the Ahr is basaltic lava which flowed in wide 
streams from them. There are frequent quarries, 
some having been worked by the Eomans. Here is 
found the tufa, from which is made by admixture 
with lime, the material largely sent to Holland for the 
construction of its dykes. 

In this district occupying a crater-like basin at nine 
hundred feet elevation, and surrounded by hills, is the 
almost circular Laacher See, about five miles in cir- 
cumference, the largest lake of the Eifel. There are 
five extinct craters and over forty streams of lava in 
its environment, showing the violent volcanic action 
in a not remote period. Valleys filled with tufa, de- 
scend from it eastward toward the Ehine, but there 
is no natural outlet for the water, though an arti- 
ficial one has been made to the Nette, leading to the 
Ehine above Andernach. On the southwestern shore 
of the lake is the Benedictine Abbey of Laach, once 



380 THE RHINE. 

among the most celebrated in Germany, founded in 
the eleventh century. It was suppressed by the French 
in the early nineteenth century but has recently been 
restored to the Benedictines. The old Abbey church is 
one of the finest Eomanesque constructions in the 
Ehine district, with five beautiful towers and a noble 
porch, and magnificent interior vaulting. In the 
choir is the monument of the founder, the Count Pal- 
atine Henry, who died in 1095, his recumbent figure 
lying on the sarcophagus beneath a canopy of which 
the two front columns are monoliths taken from an 
ancient Eoman aqueduct through the Eifel. The 
volcano in this district which is most interesting, is 
farther southward, not far from the Moselle, the long 
hill of the Mosenberg, rising in three peaks and hav- 
ing four craters. Peat is dug from the craters, and 
large lava streams overlie the adjacent regions, in 
which are numerous quarries. 

THE LEGEisTD OF ROLANDSECK. 

Following down the Ehine below Eemagen, the 
hills again compress it, and we come to the Eoder- 
berg, which is the last cliff on the western side, for be- 
low here the elevations recede from the bank. This is 
an extinct volcano, and at the foot of the range is the 
pleasant village of Eolandseck, and out in midstream, 
the islands of Nonnenwerth and Grafenwerth. Villas 
dot the hillslopes and upon the basaltic cliff, elevated 
three hundred feet above the river, are the ruins of 



THE LEGEND OF ROLANDSECK. 381 

the famous castle which gave the name. It now ap- 
pears as a shattered arch, and one or two turrets, 
and is known as the "Eoland Arch." The interesting 
story of this castle is that it was built by the famous 
Eoland, the Paladin, nephew of Charlemagne, who 
was killed at Eoncesvalles. In the eleventh century 
the castle was known as Eulcheseck and the convent 
on the Xonnenwerth island was called Eulcheswerth. 
The tale is a m3^th, but it is none the less interesting. 
The old castle was used until the fifteenth century 
and then fell into decay- From it there is a magnifi- 
cent view northward over the broad plain of the Ehine, 
and the group of the Seven Mountains, compressing 
its eastern bank, with the bold height of DrachenfeLs 
in front. Far down below, both road and railway pass 
along the base of the hills on either side, close to the 
water. 

Eoland, we are told, in his journeys along the 
Ehine, became the guest of the Count of the Seven 
Mountains at his castle of Drachenfels, and as was 
then the custom, the host's beautiful daughter, Hilde- 
gunde, welcomed him with the usual offering of bread 
and wine. Eoland was smitten by her beauty, and 
they soon became affianced lovers. But the brave 
knight was summoned by Charlemagne to the crusade 
against the infidels. Time sped; Hildegunde anx- 
iously awaited his return, but he came not. There 
were alarming rumors that he had fallen in battle, and 
then his death was reported. The inconsolable lady in 
despair took the vows of the convent and shut herself 



382 THE RHINE. 

up in Xonnenwerth. The story of his death, however, 
was untrue. Eoland had been desperately wounded, 
but he recovered and came back to the Drachenfels, 
seeking his bride, but found she was forever lost to 
him. Then he built the castle of Rolandseek, and 
lived there in solitude, watching the nimnery on the 
island below, to occasionally catch a glimpse of a fair 
form as she passed to her devotions in the little 
chapel. One day he missed her, and the next, the toll- 
ing of the bell and a funeral procession told him she 
was no more. From that time Roland never spoke, 
his heart was broken, and soon after his attendant 
found him rigid and lifeless, his eyes still gazing on 
the convent chapel. 

This scene and its story, deeply impressed Long- 
fellow, when he visited the Rhine. He wrote : "The 
ruined tower still looks down upon the Kloster-Non- 
nenwerth, as if the sound of the funeral bell had 
changed the faithful Paladin to stone, and he was 
watching still to see the form of his beloved one come 
forth, not from her cloister, but from his grave." 
Trees above and vines below, cover the hillsides, but 
no one with any regard for the romance surrounding 
this pleasant place, will now question the world- 
famous legend, even if the renowned Paladin, its hero, 
was killed at Roncesvalles, in the Pyrenees. Xonnen- 
werth, with its buildings surrounded by trees, is still 
a nun^s island, though the original convent of St. 
Ursula, where the lady sought asylum, and the subse- 
quent nunnery built in the seventeenth century and 



THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. 383 

suppressed in the nineteenth, have both disappeared. 
The existing buildings are occupied by Sisters of 
Charity as a school for young ladies. But the present 
conditions make scant difference. Longfellow, still 
reminiscent of the past, continues : "The willows 
droop in mournful luxuriance along the island, and 
harmonize with the memory that through the descent 
of a thousand years, love still keeps green and fresh. 
Nor has it permitted even those additions of fiction, 
which like mosses, gather by time, over the truth that 
they adorn — yet adorning, conceal — to mar the simple 
tenderness of the legend." As the hills recede from 
the Rhine below Rolandseck on the western shore, the 
pretty villa-environed town of Godesberg spreads 
along, having on the basaltic eminence above it, at 
two hundred and fifty feet elevation, the ruins of the 
old castle which, originally a Roman fort, was long a 
stronghold of Cologne, but was destroyed in the six- 
teenth century. Across the river is a broad and fer- 
tile plain, with pleasant villages nestling in the sun, 
and surrounded by orchards and vineyards, these be- 
ing about the farthest northward spots where the vine 
is successfully grown on the Rhine, sheltered by the 
towering range of mountains enclosing them north 
and east. 

THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. 

There now rises the ponderous form of the Dra- 
chenfels, the last great hill compressing the Rhine on 



384 THE RHINE. 

its eastern bank, and the outpost of the noted "Seven 
Mountains/' of which it is the most famous. This 
great range of the Siebengebirge spreads about three 
miles to the eastward and stretches nine miles north- 
ward. It is a group of long rounded ridges and peaks, 
of volcanic construction, and is named from the 
seven distinct summits seen in the distant view, as 
one comes up the river from Cologne. Forests cover 
much of their sides, and almost every summit has a 
tower or an ancient hermit's cell, the old castles hav- 
ing been strongholds of the Archbishops of Cologne. 
The village of Konigswinter nestling at their base on 
the Ehine is the place where visitors land, and from 
it inclined plane railways lead up two of the heights, 
the Drachenfels and the Petersberg. The great 
"Eock of the Dragon" rises over nine hundred feet, 
almost from the edge of the river, and is crowned by 
an old keep-tower, in ruins, which is the sole relic of 
the ancient castle that takes us back to a tale even 
more ancient and mythical than the legend of Ro- 
landseck. The steep sides of the mountain are cov- 
ered with scrub timber and undergrowth, through 
which the pathway winds to the top, and the railway 
route also is visible. Hollowed in the side is the quarry 
whence the trachyte blocks were taken out to build 
Cologne Cathedral in the fourteenth century, so that 
it was called the "Dombruch." Also half-way up 
the ascent is the cavern of the terrible dragon, which 
the story of the Nibelungenlied tells us was killed by 
the hero Siegfried, known as the "Horny." The view 



THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. 385 

from the top is gorgeous, and it extends northward 
down the river across the wide Rhine plain, twenty 
miles to Cologne, while all about are great hills and 
deep valleys, with smiling villages nestling in the 
sheltered nooks, and far southward can be traced the 
ravine through which the Ehine comes, with the dark 
Eifel cliffs bounding it. 

All these peaks have historical recollections. On 
the Lowenberg, the Protestant Archbishop Gebhard 
Teuchsess of Cologne took refuge in 1585, when de- 
clared an apostate in the wars against the Reforma- 
tion. On the Sternberg is a chapel of St. Peter, built 
within the limits of a Roman fortress. Another peak 
has the story of an unhappy pair, who having vowed 
themselves into the cloister, yet married, whereupon 
they were swallowed up by a yawning chasm at the 
moment of the nuptial benediction, their souls being 
afterward dimly seen soaring upward. The Wolken- 
berg, or "Cloud Mountain,'^ typifies the tale of a faith- 
less wife, who was carried away in a cloud, while the 
Ochlberg, rising over fifteen hundred feet, records 
"God's Love." Yet another summit is sacred to the 
memory of a Christian maid who abandoned her in- 
tended pagan husband in order to maintain her faith. 
Much of the ancient tradition and folk-lore of the 
Rhenish valley gathers around these wonderful moun- 
tains, while over them ranges as elsewhere in Ger- 
many the fabled "Wild Hunter." The Petersberg is 
crowned with a chapel, whence one looks out upon the 
Rhine, and the extensive plain beyond. Nestling 

25 



386 THE RHINE. 

among these hills is the beautiful valley of the Heis- 
terbacker-Mantel, with . the remains of the old Cis- 
tercian Abbe}^, bearing the arms of Heisterback^ on 
the mined gate, the Heister, a young beech, and the 
Bach, a brook, while alongside as guardians stand 
St. Benedict and St. Bernard. But the most famous 
of all is the bold Drachenfels, whose ancient legends 
have varying forms, but all agreeing in making this 
cliff the home of a powerful dragon who guarded a 
mighty treasure, concealed in his cavern. The hero 
Siegfried killed the dragon, and bathing himself in its 
blood, so that he became invulnerable, he was known 
as ^^Siegfried the Horny." Another version is that 
the dragon had carried off the daughter of Childeric, 
king of the Franks, hiding her in the cave, where 
Siegfried found them and killed the dragon with his 
resistless sword Balmung. Then the maid dutifully 
married her deliverer, who built the castle for their 
mountain home. Still another story is given in the 
early church traditions, of an annual sacrifice of a 
maiden to the dragon. A Christian maiden, chosen 
by lot from the adjacent village down by the river, 
was placed outside the cavern, and hanging from her 
neck was a cross; the dragon rushed out, but seeing 
the cross, shrunk back, overcome by the emblem of 
the church, and in fright fell dead. Thus the inter- 
esting tales are told of this wonderful region, and 
most plaintively also has sung Byron in CJiilde Har- 
old, lamenting the absence of his sister Augusta as he 
wandered along the Ehine : 



THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. 387 

"The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 

Whose breast of waters broadly swells 
Between the banks which bear the vine, 

And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, 
And fields which promise corn and wine 

And scattered cities crowning these, 
Whose far white walls along them shine. 

Have strew'd a scene which I should see 
With double joy, wert thou with me! 

"And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes. 
And hands which offer early flowers. 

Walk smiling o'er this paradise; 
Above, the frequent feudal towers 

Through green leaves lift their walls of gray. 
And many a rock which steeply lowers. 

And noble arch in proud decay. 
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers ; 

But one thing want these banks of Khine — 
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine! 

"The river nobly foams and flows; 
The chasm of this enchanted ground, 

And all its thousand turns, disclose 
Some fresher beauty varying round: 

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 
Through life to dwell delighted here; 

Nor could on earth a spot be found 
To Nature and to me so dear, 

Could thy dear ej^es, in following mine 
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!" 



THE LOWER RHINE. 



VI. 

THE LOWER RHINE. 

Bonn — Schwarz-Rheindorf — Siegburg — Cologne — The 
Cathedral — The Three Kings — St. Ursula and the 
Eleven Thousand Virgins — Other Cologne Churches — 
Cologne's History — Aix la Chapelle — Charlemagne and 
the Relics — Emmaburg — Diisseldorf — Kaiserswerth 

— Altenberg — Schloss Burg — Saligen — Elberfeld- 
Barmen — Neuss — Munclien-Gladbach — Crefeld — 
Kempen — Duisburg — Ruliroit — Essen — Dortmund 

— Wesel — Xanten — Emmerich — Cleves — The 
Reichswald — The Rhine Delta — The Waal, the 
Yssel, the Lek, the Cromme Rhyn, the Vecht, the Oude 
Rhyn — The Schenkenschenz — Milligen — Gelderland 

— Nymegen — The Betuwe — The Veluwe — Arnhem — 
Ede — The Koningstafel — Zeyst — Utrecht — Bois le 
Due — Bommel — The Maas — Loevenstein — The 
Merwede — The Biesbosch — The Hollandsch Diep — 
Breda — Dordrecht — The Noord Canal — Ysselmonde 

— Rotterdam — Gouda — Delftshaven — Schiedam — 
Vlaardingen — The Maas Delta — The Nieuwe Water- 
weg — Delft — William the Silent — The Hague — 
Scheveningen — Leyden — Haarlem Lake — The Y — 
Haarlem — Dutch Bulbs — The Zuyder Zee — The Old 
Rhine — Endegeest — Katwyk — The Outlet Canal — 
Farewell to the Rhine. 

BONN TO COLOGNE. 

With augmented volume, the noble Rhine emerges 
from its majestic gorge below the Drachenfels, to wind 

391 



392 THE RHINE. 

in ample reaches over the plain beyond. Just north 
of the outlet is the noted University city of Bonn, 
upon the western shore. The view had from the river 
of the old houses with their conical topped and 
rounded towers, and pleasant gardens spread along the 
stone-protected bank, of the handsome residences 
dotted about, of the extensive University buildings 
peeping from among the trees of the Eoyal Garden, 
and of the lofty Miinster tower, is most attractive. A 
new and graceful bridge spans the river in three 
arches, the centre opening being over six hundred 
feet wide. As the visitor ascends the steps from the 
quay to the bridge, an impressive statue of Julius 
Caesar reminds of the Eoman domination of the Ehine, 
long ago. This was one of their earliest fortified 
camps upon the great river, begun by Drusus, the 
Castra Bonnensia of Tacitus. 

The place gradually grew and became important in 
the thirteenth century when the Archbishop of Co- 
logne made it the seat of his government, various Ger- 
man kings being subsequently crowned in the Miin- 
ster. The Archbishops espoused the cause of the 
Reformation in the sixteenth century, when Gebhard 
Teuchsess, having married the nun Agnes, was ban- 
ished from the Electorate, and took refuge with her 
on the Lowenberg. Bonn had serious troubles in the 
wars that followed, and during two centuries suffered 
from sieges. Finally, in 1717, the walls were levelled, 
and later in that century there were additional rav- 
ages from the French domination, the population de- 



BONN TO COLOGNE. 393 

dining to barely seven thousand. The founding of 
the Frederich Wilhelm University in 1818 began an 
era of prosperity and gave Bonn its chief modern im- 
portance, so that now the population exceeds fifty 
thousand and students come from all parts of the 
world, many celebrated men having been educated 
here. Its origin was an Academy begun in 1777, 
which became the University a few years later, but 
was suppressed by the French afterward. The orig- 
inal Electoral Palace is now occupied by the Univer- 
sit}^, the spacious buildings extending nearly two thou- 
sand feet in length, fronting the Eoyal Garden and its 
fine avenues of trees and having been recently re- 
stored. The Library contains over two hundred and 
fifty thousand volumes and many valuable manu- 
scripts. 

The Miinster is back of the University, its lofty 
octagonal tower, a veritable landmark rising high 
above, and being thirteenth century work. AYe are 
told that the foundation of this old church can be 
traced back to the time of Constantine, and the crypt 
and part of the building over it date from the elev- 
enth century. Within, are the sarcophagus of Arch- 
bishop Engelbert von Falkenberg, of the thirteenth 
century, and a bronze statue of St. Helena, the mother 
of Constantine. N'orth of the Miinster is a square in 
which stands the noted bronze statue of Ludwig von 
Beethoven, which was unveiled in 1845 with elaborate 
ceremonies. Queen Victoria being present. Bee- 
thoven, the famous composer, is the most distin- 



394 THE RHINE. 

guished citizen of Bonn of recent times, and was born 
in 1770 in the garret of a house on the Bonngasse, 
leading off from the Market Place in the centre of the 
town. This house is now preserved as a Museum of 
Beethoven relics, the garret being kept as it was at 
the time of his birth. Beethoven's grandfather, a 
native of Antwerp, became bandmaster of the Elec- 
tor at Bonn, and his father was a tenor singer. In 
the Market Place, where the chief streets converge is 
a fine fountain column erected in honor of the Elec- 
tor Maximilian Frederick in the eighteenth century, 
and upon it fronts the Rathhaus, ascended by an im- 
posing staircase. 

Eastward, near the river, is the old bastion of the 
Alte ZoU, from which an incline descends to the 
promenade along the Rhine, which the ancient fort 
was built to control. Here is a monument to the 
patriotic German poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, who died 
at Bonn, January, 1860, and also there are exhibited 
French guns captured in the war of 1870. Bonn pos- 
sesses an attractive modern Museum in red sandstone, 
containing collections of antiquities and art. Its 
grand promenade is the Poppelsdorfer Allee,^ a wide 
avenue with rows of beautiful horse chestnuts, leading 
westward from the University to the former residence 
of the Electors, the Poppelsdorfer Schloss, now used 
largely by the University for its Natural History Col- 
lections. There are adjacent, the Chemical, Physio- 
logical, Anatomy and Agricultural buildings. Be- 
yond the Schloss is the village of Poppelsdorf, above 



BONN TO COLOGNE. 395 

which rises the high Kreuzberg, crowned by a promi- 
nent white church. This church belonged to an old 
monastery, and in the chapel behind the altar, are 
the "Holy Steps" of Italian marble, built in 1750, imi- 
tating the "Scala Santa'^ of the Lateran at Rome. 
There are twenty-eight steps, which the penitent pil- 
grim ascends on the knees. In the old Bonn ceme- 
tery are buried many celebrities. Here is the monu- 
ment of Mebuhr, who died in 1831, erected by Fred- 
erick William IV. in memory of his "teacher and 
friend.'"' Here also are buried the widow and son of 
Schiller, Schumann, the composer, dying in 1856, Ar- 
gelander, the astronomer, and Bunsen, the physicist. 
Across the Rhine, just below Bonn is the curious 
old Church of Schwarz-Rheindorf, a two-storied struc- 
ture built in the form of a Greek cross, with a central 
dome. It comes down from the twelfth century, and 
was consecrated by the celebrated Archbishop Arnold 
of Wied, in 1151, who is buried in it. Among the 
curiosities of construction, is an octagonal aperture, 
about ten feet in diameter, between "the stories, and 
beneath the dome. This was to enable the inmates of 
a neighboring nunnery to enter the upper story and 
hear the service without being seen by the congrega- 
tion below. The Rhine winds over the plain, north- 
ward from Bonn, between comparatively flat banks 
in a Avidening valley, though the hills on the eastern 
side do not entirely disappear. The surface, how- 
ever, becomes gradually more and more level, while 
the river channel broadens. The crooked Sieg comes 



396 THE RHINE. 

in from the east, out of the distant hills at Siegbnrg, 
where was the old Benedictine Abbey, founded in the 
eleventh century by Archbishop Anno of Cologne, 
the guardian of Emperor Henry IV. Anno died in 
1075, was sainted_, and his richly adorned reliquary 
is among the precious treasures of the Parish Church. 
The Abbey buildings are now a reformatory. Below 
the Sieg, the Ehine flows with swift current between 
low green banks, with pleasant villages, and occa- 
sional dykes built out to improve the channel, while 
picturesque little windmills are scattered about. For 
miles over the flat land, as Cologne is approached, 
can be discerned the noble Cathedral with its tall 
towers, the great landmark of the northern horizon, 
as the river curves around its man}^ bends. Then 
come in sight with closer view, the powerful defensive 
works of stone and brick, and grassy slope and moat, 
the loop-holed round towers and ancient walls, the 
conical topped steeples, curious old houses and busy 
wharves of the famous city which commands the lower 
Rhine. The bridge of boats lies low on the water, 
and the great modern iron bridge crosses majestically 
in front of the Cathedral, as the steamboat halts at 
the quay to land its passengers. 

THE COLOGN-E CATHEDRAL. 

The great Cathedral is the central and prominent 
feature in all views of Cologne (in German, Koln), 
but the beginning of the original church here is 



THE COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. 397 

shrouded in mystery. The ancient legend is that the 
first architect, perplexed by many proposed plans, 
finally dreamed of one opportunely presented by His 
Satanic Majesty, and was so infatuated with it, that 
to procure it, he sold his own soul and that of the 
first person who was to enter the church. AYhen the 
consecration came, however, the bishop, while he 
could not save the architect, endeavored to prevent 
another sacrifice, and got a female malefactor, con- 
demned to die, to agree to first enter the structure. 
She was brought in a covered box with solemn cere- 
mony to the door, and the box being opened, crept 
into the church, whereupon Satan, waiting inside, 
seized her and broke her neck; then rushing to the 
architect's house, similarly killed him. But, when 
he had gone out of the church, the woman emerged 
from the box alive and well, and was given her free- 
dom. His Majesty had been fooled by a pig clad in 
a woman's gown, and there was great rejoicing in Co- 
logne. 

The city occupies a half-circle on the western bank 
of the Rhine, around which the fortifications extend 
for a distance of about seven miles. The Cathedral, 
which is the principal edifice, and chief object of in- 
terest, is one of the finest and purest monuments of 
Gothic architecture in Europe. It is the Cathedral 
Church of St. Peter, and, next to St. Peter's in Rome, 
is said to be the largest Christian church in the world. 
The Dom, as it is called, stands on an elevation about 
sixty feet above the river. The site develops Roman 



398 THE RHINE. 

remains, and when Charlemagne created the Cologne 
archbishopric from the bishopric which had existed 
from the days of Constantine in the fourth century, 
his imperial chaplain Hildebold was appointed to the 
post and is said to have built the oldest cathedral 
church. In the ninth century a church stood there, 
and in the thirteenth another was planned, but it was 
not until Conrad of Hochstaden became archbishop 
that work was begun. In August, 1248, he laid the 
foundation stone of the present Cathedral with im- 
pressive ceremony, and it was over six centuries build- 
ing. There were many architects in all that long pe- 
riod, and weird tales are told of them. One good 
monk, who dedicated his soul to the Virgin and the 
work, is said to have long taken his ghostly walks 
about the unfinished walls, with compasses and meas- 
uring rod, dressed in gray cap and long green robe — ■ 
for the German ghosts along the Ehine are said to 
prefer green to white as a nightly costume. The con- 
struction proceeded slowly, beginning with the choir, 
the older church being gradually removed as the new 
one progressed. The nave was built in the four- 
teenth century, and by the middle of the fifteenth, a 
chime of bells had been placed in a tower. Then 
wars interposed, building stopped, a temporary roof 
was put on and becoming more and more dilapidated, 
when the French came in 1796, they took all the 
lead away from the roof and used the interior for a 
forage storehouse. After Napoleon's downfall the 
Prussian kings gave attention to the Cathedral, and 



THE COLOGNE CATHEDRAL. 399 

in 1823 began a restoration. Out of this grew the 
plan of completing it as a national undertaking, and 
a new foundation stone was laid in 1842, money being 
raised by popular subscription. The tower was finally 
completed, over $4,500,000 being expended after 1842, 
the last stone was placed in August, 1880, and on 
October 15th of that year. Emperor William I. cele- 
brated the completion of the great building with sol- 
emn pomp, six hundred and thirty-two years after it 
had begun. 

This magnificent Cathedral is a nave flanked by 
double aisles, and transepts with single aisles. It is 
about four hundred and fifty feet long and two hun- 
dred feet wide, the transepts expanding to two hun- 
dred and eighty-two feet. The walls are one hundred 
and fifty feet high, the roof two hundred feet, the 
central tower over the crossing nearly three hundred 
and sixty feet, and the two noble western towers five 
hundred and twelve feet. The Drachenfels quarries 
furnished most of the stone used, and the exterior is 
a profuse mass of architectural ornamentation of the 
best Gothic school. The western fagade is a grand 
structure, completed according to the early plans, ris- 
ing in two huge towers, with the chief doorway be- 
tween them, and a vast middle window. The towers 
are of three square stories, then an octagonal story, 
having splendid open spires rising above. The great 
door is ninety-three feet high and thirty-one feet wide, 
with a window above, forty-eight feet high and twenty 
feet wide, and the side portals are thirty-eight feet 



400 THE RHINE. 

high and eighteen feet wide. The bronze doors are 
elaborate modern works. The transepts terminate in 
modern portals. In the south tower are the bells, the 
largest weighing twenty-five tons, the huge Kaiser- 
glocke, cast from the metal of French captured guns 
in 1871, and requiring twenty-eight men to ring it. 
The two next largest are fifteenth century bells, 
weighing eleven and six tons. 

The interior is profoundly impressive. Entering 
the western portal, the eye quickly glances along the 
grand avenue of pillars bounding the nave, past the 
transepts and into the choir, to the steps of the altar, 
and sees beyond, the gorgeous light streaming in rich 
hues through the distant eastern window; there is 
nothing to obstruct the view. The nave is about fifty 
feet wide between the tall pillars and rises one hun- 
dred and forty-five feet, having fifty-six pillars bear- 
ing the roof, and extending in splendid colonnades for 
nearly four hundred feet. The side aisles are sixty 
feet high, the inner ones being twenty-two and the 
outer twenty-seven feet wide. Seven chapels encircle 
the choir which was finished in the early fourteenth 
century. There are frescoes and magnificent stained 
glass throughout the nave and transepts, much of it 
being ancient, while several modern windows were 
presented by the German Emperors, the great western 
window having been given by the Crown Prince in 
1878, who afterward was Frederick III. All about 
there are statues of apostles, saints, martyrs and 
fathers of the church. There are sixteenth century 



THE THREE KINGS. 401 

statues of Jesus and the Virgin in the choir, and the 
high altar is the ancient "Altar of St. Clara" with fine 
wood carvings of the Passion. In the choir chapels 
are tombs of noted archbishops, including Conrad, 
the founder, and his predecessor, St. Engelbert, who 
first conceived the idea of erecting the present Cathe- 
dral; also Reinald von Dassel, who brought the relics 
of the "Three Kings" to Cologne. In the floor of the 
choir in front of the Chapel of the Magi, is buried the 
heart of Marie de Medicis, widow of Henri TV. of 
France, who died in exile in Cologne in 16-12. In the 
Chapel of St. Michael is Meister Stephen's noted pic- 
ture, the Dombild, representing the Adoration of the 
Magi, painted about the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
tur3^ The interior of the great Cathedral is magni- 
ficently decorated, and the elaborate stone work ex- 
hibits the perfection of Gothic art. It is said that the 
masonry used in the construction of this wonderful 
church, would build a vast city; that its outer flying 
buttresses would construct houses for ten thousand 
people. It has forests of stone foliage, myriads of 
grinning gargoyles, enchanting turrets, rich mosaics, 
armies of statues, and rising above all the grand and 
airy spires surmounting the great western towers. 

THE THREE KINGS. 

"Three Kings came ridijig from far away, 
Melchior and Gaspar and Balthazar; 
Three Wise Men out of the East were they, 
And they travelled by night and they slept by day, 
For their guide was a beautiful, wonderful star. 
26 



402 THE RHINE. 

"The star was so beautiful, large, and clear. 
That all the other stars of the sky 
Became a white mist in the atmosphere, 
And by this they knew that the coming was near 
Of the Prince foretold in the prophecy. 

"Three caskets they bore on their saddle-bows. 

Three caskets of gold with golden keys ; 
Their robes were of crimson silk with rows 
Of bells and pomegranates and furbelows, 

Their turbans like blossoming almond-trees. 

"And when they came to Jerusalem, 

Herod the Great, who had heard this thing. 

Sent for the Wise Men and questioned them; 

And said, 'Go down unto Bethlehem, 
And bring me tidings of this new King.' 

*'So they rode away; and the star stood still. 

The only one in the gray of morn; 
Yes, it stopped, — it stood still of its own free will, 
Right over Bethlehem on the hill, 

The city of David where Christ was born. 

"And the Three Kings rode through the gate and the guard, 
Through the silent street till their horses turned 
And neighed as they entered the great inn-yard ; 
But the windows were closed and the doors were barred, 
And only a light in the stable burned. 

"And cradled there in the scented hay. 

In the air made sweet by the breath of kine. 

The little child in the manger lay, 

Tlie child, that would be a king one day 
Of a kingdom not human but divine. 

"They laid their oflerings at his feet: 

The gold was their tribute to a King, 
The frankinscense, with its odor sweet. 
Was for the Priest, the Paraclete, 

The myrrh for the body's burying. 



THE THREE KINGS. 403 

"Then the Kings rode out of tlie city gate, 

With a clatter of hoofs in proud array ; 
But they went not back to Herod the Great, 
For they knew his malice and feared his hate, 

And returned to their homes by another way." 

In the arms of the city of Cologne appear three 
crowns, representing the Magi, or the "Three Kings," 
the most sacred relics this wonderful Cathedral pos- 
sesses. For a long time they were preserved in the 
central chapel at the eastern termination of the choir, 
the Chapel of the Magi, but they are now in the Treas- 
ury alongside the northern transept. The Magi were 
the three wise men who came from the East to Bethle- 
hem for the adoration of the infant Saviour. They 
were Persian or Chaldean astrologers, a race who 
wandered over the world in search of knowledge. 
These men divined the birth of the King of the Jews, 
by the appearance of a star in the east, and their 
names were Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. Thus 
they came to worship at the manger in Bethlehem, as 
described by St. Matthew, their visit being the Epi- 
phan}^, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The 
Eoman Empress Helena, the mother of Constantino 
the Great, who lived in the third century, was con- 
verted to Christianity and made a pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem where with miraculous inspiration she is said 
by the tradition, to have identified all the objects con- 
nected with the Saviour, including His sepulchre and 
the true cross, and the burial place of the Magi. These 
relics she brought to Constantinople, where they re- 



404 THE RHINE. 

mained for a long time, but were afterward removed 
to Milan. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa 
went to Italy and the crusades, these precious pos- 
sessions were secured by him, and he bestowed them 
in 1164, upon the most powerful prelate of the time 
in northern Europe, Archbishop Reinald von Dassel 
of Cologne. This prelate brought them with great so- 
lemnity over the Alps and down the Ehine, and they 
were taken to the Cathedral. Upon the completion 
of the new choir, which was consecrated in 1322, they 
were enthroned in the Chapel of the Magi, in a shrine 
richly adorned with gold, silver and precious stones. 
In this chapel there is an ancient carved altar dec- 
orated with the Adoration of the Magi, and having a 
statue of the Virgin. 

!N'ot long ago the splendid reliquary containing 
these relics was removed for greater safety to the 
Cathedral Treasury. It is a golden casket about six 
feet long, modelled as a Eomanesque basilica, and 
highly decorated. It was seriously injured during the 
French occupation of the Cathedral after the Revolu- 
tion, and in 1820, a thief got in, and spent a night in 
plundering the shrine, escaping next morning. There 
were then carried off over a hundred precious stones. 
A movable panel at the head of the casket discloses 
the three skulls, each encircled with a diamond crown. 
Outside are inscribed the three names, in square let- 
ters set with rubies. There are other sacred relics in 
the Treasury, though of less renown, among them the 
silver shrine of St. Engelbert, a processional cross of 



THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS. 4O0 

the twelfth century and numerous sacred vestments 
and utensils. There are extensive Museums adjacent 
to the Cathedral containing valuable collections of art 
and antiquities. From the eastern front a broad 
street extends down to the great bridge crossing the 
Rhine. 

THE ELEVEX THOUSAXD VIRGIXS. 

Some distance northwest of the Dom, is the noted 
Church of St. Ursula. This pious lady, who 
was an English princess, went on a pilgrim- 
age to Eome, in the early days of Christianity, 
and returning down the Ehine, with a retinue 
of eleven thousand virgins, they were all bar- 
barously murdered near Cologne in 453, by the 
pagan Huns. The lady was made a saint, and in that 
century a church was erected in her honor for her 
shrine, and the bones of the virgins were all gathered 
into it. The present church has replaced the origi- 
nal structure, and it has recently been restored. At 
first the bones were buried beneath the church, but af- 
terward they were exhumed and are now preserved in 
glass cases placed all around the interior, this being 
one of the great curiosities of Cologne. It is a re- 
markable display, especially the rows of skulls of 
which there are thousands which have the parts below 
the forehead covered with needlework and embroidery, 
and some being inlaid with pearls and precious stones. 
The whole building is filled with them, and the light 



406 THE EHINE. 

from the windows comes through apertures encased in 
bones. There are special cases for the skulls of St. 
Ursula and several of the principal virgins, with her 
arm bones and one foot. Among the other relics is 
one of the alabaster vases wherein the Saviour turned 
the water into wine. It is somewhat dilapidated, one 
handle being gone, and the edges well worn by pour- 
ing out fluids, the sides being also thin and cracked; 
its capacity is about four gallons. The reliquary of St. 
Ursula is preserved, and the legend is depicted in 
frescoes, while her statue stands in the north aisle. 
Her Saint's day is October 21st, and she is known as 
the special patron of young girls, particularly of 
school girls. This renowned legend of Cologne anti- 
quity has been much modified by modern criticism, it 
being suggested that the unfortunate St. Ursula, in- 
stead of the vast army of virgins, really had but one 
companion who was murdered, named Undecimilla, 
which was easily mistaken in tradition for undecim 
mlTlia, or eleven thousand. Be this as it may, the 
stacks of bones and skulls stored in this unique 
church, show that the story has a practical founda- 
tion, and as Cologne believes it we may be content. 
The ample revenues of this church are administered 
by an abbess and six canonesses, who to do proper 
honor to the saint, must all be countesses. 

There are other noted churches in this famous city. 
St. Maria im Capitol, is named from the tradition 
that its site was originally occupied by the Eoman 
Capitol, which was succeeded by the palace of the 



THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS. 407 

Frankish kings. Plectrudis, the wife of Pepin, and 
mother of the great Charles Martel, built the first 
church here in the late seventh century, and the pres- 
ent one was consecrated in the eleventh century by 
Pope Leo IX. It is cruciform, with a short choir and 
transepts, each terminating in semicircular apses, 
giving that end a trefoil shape. The interior contains 
old tombs of the very early Frankish period, among 
them being that of Plectrudis, the foundress; and the 
cloisters are said to be the oldest in Germany. The 
Church of St. Pantaleon is said to have been origin- 
ally built by Archbishop Bruno, in the tenth century, 
of materials taken from Constantine's bridge over the 
Ehine, and it was reconstructed in the twelfth and 
thirteenth centuries. In it are buried Bruno, and the 
Empress Theophano, who died in the tenih century. 
In the persecution of the Christians by Diocletian in 
the third century, there perished here over three hun- 
dred martyrs of the Thebain legion, including their 
leader Gereon, and in their memory was built St. Ge- 
reon's Church, by the Empress St. Helena. This is a 
peculiar structure — the first church having been cir- 
cular, with ten spacious niches surrounding the in- 
terior. This has become a decagonal Gothic nave, to 
which adjoins a long Romanesque choir at the east, 
and a square vestibule at the west. The old church 
having become dilapidated, the round nave was recon- 
structed in the thirteenth century, being about sixty 
feet in diameter, and one hundred and fifty feet high, 
covered by groined vaulting. In the niches of the 



408 THE RHINE. 

nave are small chapels with the stone sarcophagi of 
the martyrs, their skulls being arranged along the 
sides of the choir, which is upon a higher level. 

The Nenmarkt, the largest square in the old town, 
has at an angle, the fine Apostles Church surmounted 
by a dome, and dating from the twelfth century. The 
story is told that when the plague raged in Cologne 
in the fourteenth century, the wife of Sir Mengis was 
attacked, and falling in a death-like swoon was inter- 
red here. A thieving grave-digger attempting to ab- 
stract her ring awoke her, whereupon she ran in her 
grave clothes out of the church and to her husband^s 
house. He, imagining that he beheld an apparition, 
declared he would sooner believe that his horses 
would go upstairs to the attic than that his dead wife 
could thus return alive. At once, horses^ hoofs were 
heard ascending the stairs, and soon their heads were 
looking out of the attic window. The lady recovered 
and lived many years, and two horses' heads affixed to 
a house on the north side of the square are said to 
have been put there in commemoration. The Church 
of St. Peter, not far away, contains over the High 
Altar, Eubens' famous painting of the Crucifixion of 
St. Peter, which the French carried off to Paris, but it 
was returned after N'apoleon's downfall. It was 
painted in 1640, and behind the altar is buried the 
artist's father, Johann Eubens. Farther westward 
is St. Severin's Church with an imposing quadrangular 
tower of the fourteenth century, and containing the 
sarcophagus of the Saint. Gross St. Martin, known 



THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS. 409 

as the old Irish Church, is down near the river. It 
was originally the place of worship of converted Celts, 
on an island in the river, but was removed to the 
mainland and consecrated here in the twelfth century, 
the massive tower rising nearly three hundred feet. 
Within is a marble font, said to have been presented by 
Pope Leo III. in the early ninth century. In the 
Church of the Minorites farther inland is buried the 
noted theological disputant Duns Scotus, the greatest 
of the schoolmen, who had been invited to Cologne, 
but died in 1309 soon after his arrival. 

In the older town the streets are very crooked and 
most of them very narrow, while the sidewalks on 
these highways of varying breadth have the habit of 
contracting to about six inches width and often disap- 
pear altogether. There are many Roman relics, and 
the foundations of numerous structures of that era 
have been discovered. The removal of the ancient 
line of fortifications at heavy expense, has made a 
great improvement, they being replaced by the broad 
and beautiful Ring-Strasse, a series of ornamental 
boulevards encircling the older town for over three 
miles. Several of the ancient gates, and fragments of 
the original walls have been retained. The Eathhaus 
is built on the arches, partially existing, of an old Ro- 
man structure, and contains handsome halls. In the 
Hanseatic Hall the first general meeting of the League 
of Hanse Towns was held in November, 13G7. It is 
handsomely adorned. The tradition that Archbishop 
Engelbert, in 1264, sought the life of Burgomaster 



410 THE RHINE. 

Gryn, and put him in a den of lionS;, from which, how- 
ever, he escaped, is reproduced in the decoration of the 
portico, and the construction of the part known as the 
Lowenhof . The Giirzenich, southward from the Eath- 
haus, was built in the fifteenth century for a banquet 
halL Above the gateways are statues of Agrippa and 
Marsilius, the founder and defender of the city in the 
Eoman period. Many noted festivals were held herC;, 
but the building fell into decay, and in the nineteenth 
century was restored as a great Exchange Hall for the 
city, among the modern adornments being a fresco of 
the procession upon the completion of Cologne Cathe- 
dral in 1880. Nearer the Ehine, in the Heumarkt is 
the iine equestrian monument of Frederick William 
III., erected after the Franco-German war. 

COLOGNE^S HISTORY. 

The mystery of antiquity surrounds the origin of 
this greatest German city of the Ehine, which now 
has a population approximating four hundred thou- 
sand, with its suburbs. The Ubii founded it, and 
when Agrippa appeared, they controlled the river. 
Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus and the 
mother of Xero, in the year 51 B. C.^, placed here a 
colony of Eoman veterans, calling it the Colonia 
Agrippinensis, and from this was derived the name of 
Cologne. The entire line of old Eoman walls has been 
discovered by recent excavations, and also the naval 
camp to the southward. Among the early traditions, 



COLOGNE'S HISTORY. 4II 

reproduced in the adornment of the Giirzenich, is that 
Marsilius defended the settlement from an enemy, 
by sending out a force of armed women on the pre- 
text of cutting wood. The Emperor Constantine 
built a stone bridge across the Ehine, which the ISTor- 
mans afterward destroyed, and Archbishop Bruno, the 
brother of the Emperor Otho, used the materials in 
constructing the Church of St. Pantaleon. The 
Franks subsequently held the city and Charlemagne 
raised the see to an archbishopric. The archbishops 
grew in power and arrogance, had repeated conflicts 
with the citizens, but were finally defeated in 1288 
in the battle at Worringen, and thereafter withdrew 
to Bonn as a place of residence. The citizens then as- 
sumed municipal power through their own ofiicials, 
and the Giirzenich also has a representation of the 
Festival of St. John, which Petrarch, who visited Co- 
logne in 1333, mentions as a symbolical washing away 
of the evil of the year in the waters of the Ehine. 
The government by the citizens, however, was not 
much improved in its success, as there were violent 
conflicts between the nobles and the guilds, and the 
oaths of allegiance were still taken to the archbishops, 
coupled with the condition that the citizens' rights 
should be maintained. In 1396 the guilds gained the 
mastery over the nobles, imposing fines on the latter, 
from which the handsome tower of the Eathhaus was 
built. 

Cologne grew greatly afterward and at the close of 
the fifteenth century was almost the leading German 



412 THE RHINE. 

city in wealth and trade, having a great commerce, 
especially with England. Cologne and Lubeck were 
the leaders in the Hanseatic League, and Cologne's 
Easter Fair became a most«prominent attraction, and 
the city possessed over one hundred churches during 
its splendid mediaeval career. It declined after the 
sixteenth century, gradually lost its trade, and suf- 
fered from internal discords, the religious conflicts 
resulting in the banishment of large numbers of the 
Protestant inhabitants, who carried their arts and 
manufactures elsewhere. The French occupation 
after the Eevolution was repressive, but when the city 
came again under German control a revival began, and 
it is now enjoying a career of marked prosperity. It 
has extensive modern quays and harbor accommoda- 
tion on the river, and is one of the great fortresses of 
the Rhine, an entirely new system of defensive works 
being constructed. 

To the visitor, possibly as interesting as anything 
else in Cologne, is the puzzle as to who is the successor 
of the original maker of genuine Eau de Cologne. 
This famous perfume is said to have been first com- 
pounded by Jean Maria Farina in the early eighteenth 
century, but there are now a score or more establish- 
ments, each claiming to be the only genuine successor 
of Jean Maria Farina, as to whose original claim to 
the honor, they are all agreed. The Colognists them- 
selves do not seem to be able to settle the controversy, 
but my cautious friend Baedeker in his guide book ju- 
diciously says of the perfumed water, "the claim of 



AIX LA CHAPELLE. 413 

the firms manufacturing it^ to tlie name of Farina is 
sometimes very indirect/' A leading occupation of 
many townsfolk seems to be to tout for these Cologne 
water makers. People on the street and waiters in 
the hotels are enterprising solicitors, and at meal- 
times, with the service, a neat specimen Cologne 
bottle is deftly laid alongside the plate as a reminder. 
But the famous perfume so liberally supplied, has not 
yet been able to remove entirely the odorous reputa- 
tion given this wonderful city by Coleridge, when, af- 
ter a personal experience, his muse thus bubbled forth : 

"Ye nymphs who reign o'er sewers and sinks, 

The river Rhine, it is well known, 

Doth wash your city of Cologne; 
But tell me, nymphs, what power divine 
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?' 

AIX LA CHAPELLE. 

About forty-four miles westward from Cologne is 
the old city of Aix la Chapelle, the German Aachen. 
The route thither is over the level and almost tree- 
less plain into which the Eheinland is now flattened, a 
vast prairie stretching far northward into Holland. 
As the train moves over the surface, it is seen to be 
a region of the greatest fertility, with men and women 
cultivating the crops, and scarcely even a hedge to mar 
the symmetry. Then the route comes into a district of 
iron-mills, factories and coal mines, and the surface is 
more rolling. The women go about in wooden shoes 



414 THE RHINE. 

and carry their burdens on their heads ; the little girls 
wear three-cornered kerchiefs and elaborate gowns, 
making them look like miniatures of their grand- 
mothers just stepping out of old pictures. Here and 
there rises a gentle round-topped hill, crowned with a 
church or chateau as if to punctuate the pleasant land- 
scape. Far to the southward are seen the outlying 
spurs of the volcanic Eifel. Here are the mines and 
factories of Diiren, Eschweiler and Stolberg, the lat- 
ter having been a hunting lodge of Emperor Charle- 
magne. Near Aix la Chapelle is passed the site of his 
old castle of the Frankenberg, the present chateau be- 
ing a seventeenth century construction, and the do- 
main, a public park; and then the city is entered, the 
railway being constructed on a viaduct over the low- 
lands. 

Aix la Chapelle was the especial city of Charle- 
magne, the renowned Emperor of the Franks and 
Germans, the son and successor of Pepin. In it he is 
said to have been born in 742, though others claim 
Ingelheim, near Mayence, as the birthplace; he made 
it his favorite place of residence and the capital of 
his dominions north of the Alps, and here he died in 
814. He was the special champion of Christianity, 
conquering the heathen Saxons who lived to the north 
and east, and inducing their leader, Wittekind, to be 
baptized; and fighting the Saracens in Spain, and 
other opponents of the faith in Lombardy. He was 
crowned Emperor of the Western Romans on Christ- 
mas Eve by Pope Leo ITT. in St. Peter's original 



AIX LA CHAPELLE. 415 

church in Eome in the year 800. After his death, 
during seven centuries, his successors, the Emperors of 
the Holy Roman Empire, were all crowned at Aix la 
Chapelle, and it was known as the Imperial free city 
and the seat of royalty yar excellence. Ferdinand I., 
in 1531, was the last Emperor so crowned, and then 
Aix lost its importance and gradually became de- 
cadent, the place of coronation being removed to 
Frankfort. These Emperors took the oaths at Aix, 
not in the customary form of swearing upon the Bible; 
but by swearing upon the famous "Charlemagne rel- 
ics.^' These were a lock of the Virgin's hair and a piece 
of the true cross which he always wore suspended 
from his neck; the leathern girdle of Christ; the cord 
which bound the rod that smote the Saviour; the 
bones of St. Stephen; a fragment of Aaron's rod; and 
the bone of Charlemagne's arm. The great Cathedral 
also has in its Treasury four other most precious rel- 
ics, which are only exhibited to the public once in 
seven years, when a vast concourse of pilgrims gather 
to see them, the last occasion having been in 1902. 
When thus exhibited, they are shown by hanging 
them, much in appearance, like four banners, sus- 
pended from a balcony, over one hundred feet high, 
upon the great tower, and in full view of the multi- 
tude. These relics were presented to Charlemagne by 
the Grand Patriarch of Jerusalem; and they are the 
robe of the Virgin worn at the Nativity, the swad- 
dling clothes of the infant Jesus, the linen cloth with 
which he was girded on the cross, and the bloody 



416 THE RHINE. 

cloth in which the body of John the Baptist was wrap- 
ped. The fame of these great relics and of Charle- 
magne is the impressive mediaeval possession of Aix la 
Chapelle, which originally was a Eoman colony when 
they first took possession of the Ehine — Aqu^e Grani, 
— and is now a quiet city of about one hundred and 
forty thousand people, conducting a good deal of man- 
ufacturing, largely of woollens, worsteds and needles, 
and spreading broadly over a fertile region surrounded 
by gentle hills. The city has been greatly modern- 
ized, the old lines of fortifications are converted into 
pleasant promenades, and it now has few mediaeval 
relics. 

The Cathedral is its greatest building. Charle- 
magne began the structure in 796, for the national 
church of his empire, and Pope Leo III. consecrated 
the early portion which he had erected. This is a By- 
zantine octagon about fifty feet in diameter, having an 
ambulatory of sixteen sides around it, and surmounted 
by a cupola over one hundred feet high. In the thir- 
teenth century eight gables were constructed for the 
sides of the octagon; in the two succeeding centuries 
there were chapels built around it. In the fourteenth 
century a lofty and impressive Gothic choir was built 
at its eastern side, and there has since been a modern 
Gothic bell tower erected over the vestibule, with a 
pointed roof. The bronze doors were cast in the ninth 
century. The legend of this Cathedral, like so many 
others, is that the Devil helped its original building on 
the usual condition that the first living thing enter- 



AiX LA CHAPELLE. 417 

ing it should be sacrificed to him. The officials made 
the compact, and outwitting His Majesty, admitted a 
wolf on completion, which Satan seized. Therefore, 
on entering the vestibule, we find a bronze wolf stand- 
ing on a pillar, and also a Pine Cone. The former 
is said to be of Eoman origin, and the latter was made 
in the tenth century. The octagon roof is borne by 
eight massive columns, and the interior of the dome 
is a splendid modern Venetian Mosaic, representing 
Christ surrounded by the twenty-four elders of the 
Apocalypse. This is a copy of the old Mosaic origi- 
nally adorning it. There is a gilded candelabrum 
thirteen feet in diameter presented in the twelfth cen- 
tury by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa upon re- 
turning from the Crusade. 

On the pavement is a modern inscription of "Carlo 
Magno,'^ while his tomb was in an adjoining chapel. 
The Emperor Otho III., in the year 1000, opened 
Charlemagne^s burial vault, when the body of the Em- 
peror was found seated on the marble throne, which 
was taken out and afterward used in the coronations. 
In another chapel is the Treasury, containing the 
"Four Great Eelics" in a sumptuous silver shrine of 
the thirteenth century, and also the Eeliquary of 
Charlemagne, containing the Emperor's relics, who 
was made a saint at the time Frederick Barbarossa 
presented the great candlestick. There are also his 
hunting horn, made of Oriental ivory, the cross of Em- 
peror Lothaire, a German royal crown, and many other 
valuable possessions. In the gallery of the Octagon, 

27 



418 THE RHINE. 

is Charlemagne's marble throne, which was used by 
his successors at coronations, and also during divine 
service. They also have an ancient Parian marble 
sarcophagus which is said to have been his coffin. The 
choir is lighted by thirteen splendid windows, eighty- 
seven feet high and about sixteen feet wide, with mod- 
ern stained glass representing scenes in the life of the 
Virgin. Upon the pillars between the great 
windows are statues of the Virgin, the twelve 
apostles and Charlemagne. The pulpit, adorned 
with gilt plaques, precious stones and carved 
ivor}^, very early work of the fifth and eighth 
centuries, was presented by the Emperor Henry II. 
in the eleventh century, while the High Altar is mod- 
ern, though incorporating several old columns. 

The venerable Eathhaus, north of the Cathedral in 
the Markt-Platz, was built of the materials of the an- 
cient Palace of the Emperors in the fourteenth cen- 
tury. Its old towers were recently burnt, but the 
whole building has been restored, and it is one of the 
greatest town-halls in Europe. A modern flight of 
steps leads up to the vestibule, decorated with armor- 
ial bearings of the guilds and leading families. The 
upper floor is the Kaisersaal, one hundred and sixty- 
five feet long and sixty feet wide. There are eight 
magnificent modern frescoes on the walls, four exe- 
cuted and the others designed by the artist Alfred 
Eethel, of Aix. They are historical pictures, repre- 
senting the baptism of Wittekind and Alboin, the 
Coronation of Charlemagne at Rome, the Building of 



AIX LA CHAPELLE. 419 

the Cathedral of Aix la Chapelle, the Abdication of 
Charlemagne and Coronation of his son Louis the 
Pious, the Emperor Otho III. opening Charlemagne's 
burial vault, the overthrow of the Irmensaule, the bat- 
tle with the Saracens at Cordova, and the Conquest of 
Pavia in 774. The Avindows are adorned with the ar- 
morial bearings of the Emperors of Charlemagne's 
line, and in the Council Hall are many portraits of 
mediaeval and modern German rulers. Among the 
recent adornments of the city is the Warriors^ Monu- 
ment, in front of the railway station, erected in 1872, 
ornamented by a magnificent bronze, representing a 
dying warrior, to whom the angel presents the Palm 
of Victory. 

Aix la Chapelle is also a popular watering place, its 
warm springs, strongly impregnated with sulphur, 
being effective in rheumatism and gout, and attracting 
many visitors. They were known to the Eomans. 
There are also a couple of cold chalybeate springs. 
These springs rise on the Biichel or slope of the 
Markt-Platz, and supply extensive baths and a spac- 
ious Trinkhalle. Here are also the relics of ancient 
Koman baths. There is a fine Curhaus for the visitors. 
The city has an attractive display of paintings in the 
Suermondt Museum, named for Bartholomew Suer- 
mondt, whose gallery was its nucleus, being a valu- 
able collection of the early German, Flemish and 
Spanish masters. To the northward of the city, the 
surface rises sharply to the eminence of the Lous- 
berg, having a pyramid on the summit, where there is 



420 THE RHINE. 

a charming view over the beautiful basin in which the 
city rests, and far south to the distant hills of the 
Eifel. Off to the southwest and seven miles away 
there can be discerned on the hillside, the ancient cas- 
tle of Emmaburg, which was Charlemagne's rural re- 
treat. It was from here that the learned knight Egin- 
hard, who was the secretary and companion of Char- 
lemagne, is said by tradition to have abducted the 
Princess Emma whom he married. This is now a 
busy region of zinc works and cadmium minings con- 
trolled by the prosperous Vielle Montague Company, 
which practically rules this little neutral parish of 
Moresnet, a region about three miles long and a half 
mile wide, here inserted between Belgium and Prussia, 
and having the most valuable mines. The suggestion 
was recently made to establish here the gaming casinos 
driven out of Germany. 

DUSSELDORF. 

The lower Ehine winds northward over the plain 
from Cologne, passing the busy manufacturing sub- 
urb of Mlilheim, and receiving on the eastern side, 
the crooked flowing Dhiin and Wupper. About thirty- 
four miles away by the meandering river, and twenty- 
five miles by railway, it receives the little Diisselbach, 
and here is the noted city of Diisseldorf, on the east- 
ern bank, the name meaning "the village on the Dlis- 
sel." It is a leading industrial city of over two hun- 
dred and thirty thousand people and tlie entrepot of 



DUSSELDORF. 421 

the chief manufacturing province of Prussia. The city 
has had a great modern business and manufacturing 
development since the opening of the free navigation 
of the Ehine. In the middle ages it was the capital 
of the Dukes of Berg, and succeeding them the Princes 
Palatine made it their residence in the seventeenth 
century, the Elector John William, who lived in great 
splendor, giving it fame after 1690, when he invited 
the greatest artists of the world to his court and es- 
tablished the famous picture gallery; and the subse- 
quent Elector Charles Theodore founding the Diissel- 
dorf Academy of Art in 1767, which during the nine- 
teenth century became such a prominent centre of 
German art. The old Electoral Palace, which was in 
the ancient town and was the scene of so much grand- 
eur in the days of the Electors, was burnt recently. 
In the Market Place is the Eathhaus, built in the six- 
teenth century, and having a modern wing in Eenais- 
sance. In front is the equestrian statue of John Wil- 
liam. His tomb is in St. Andrew's Church, which was 
the place of worship of the court. In the earlier 
Church of St. Lambert are tombs of the Dukes of 
Berg. Among the chief modern constructions is the 
great Ehine bridge, finished in 1898, crossing on two 
arches of six hundred feet span and rising seventy-five 
feet above the water. A huge lion, the emblem of the 
city, surmounts the pier in midstream. 

The Academy of Art, which now gives the great 
fame of Diisseldorf, is a modern building completed 
m 1881, in imposing Eenaissance. It stands on the 



422 THE RHINE. 

northern edge of the older town, not far from the 
river, the chief fagade, over five hundred feet long, 
facing the Eoyal Garden, and having niches for stat- 
ues and handsome windows. Within are class-rooms, 
studios, and large collections of casts, the ground 
floor being the picture gallery. The greater portion 
of the works of the old masters in the Diisseldorf col- 
lection were removed to Munich in 1805, but there 
still remain here, one hundred and forty-one of these 
paintings. Among them are Eubens' Assumption, 
and Madonnas by Bellini and Cima de Conegiiano. 
There are also large collections of drawings, engrav- 
ings and water colors. The celebrated Peter Janssen, 
Director of the Academy, adorned the Aula on the up- 
per floor, with frescoes, depicting "the Course of Hu- 
man Life." In the Kunsthalle, also completed in 
1881, there is a fine exhibition of modern paintings, 
and it includes a Museum of Art and Industry and 
an Historical Museum. In front of the Kunsthalle 
is an elaborate bronze statue of Bismarck. The city 
also has other artistic statues in public squares, among 
them Emperor William I., and Cornelius, the emi- 
nent Diisseldorf artist who died in 1867, each accom- 
panied by appropriate allegorical figures. In the court 
house on the King's Place, is Schadow's great paint- 
ing of Paradise, Hell and Purgatory, the last of his 
achievements. Diisseldorf, besides its artistic fame, 
has memories of Heinrich Heine, and of the philoso- 
pher Freidrich Heinrich Jacobi, who died in 1819, the 
latter's residence, where he was visited b}- many cele- 



GREAT INDUSTRIES. 423 

brities of his time, being near the Eoyal Garden. II 
is now the home of the Malkasten club of artists. An 
ancient memory of this part of the Ehine valley is of 
St. Suitbertus, who came here from Ireland to preach 
the gospel in the early eighth century. His bones 
are preserved in the old Church of Kaiserswerth 
farther down the river. Here also stand the massive 
walls of the ruined palace of Konigsberg near the 
Ehine, from which the proud Archbishop Anno, car- 
ried off his young ward, the Emperor Henry IV. This 
was formerly an island, and the original castle upon it 
was a construction of the ancient Franks. It got its 
name of Kaiserswerth, or ^^Emperor's Island" from the 
Emperor Frederick I., who occupied and enlarged the 
castle, making it his palace. 

GREAT INDUSTRIES. 

To the eastward of the Ehine, above Diisseldorf, 
are the tributary streams above mentioned, the Wup- 
per and the Dhiin, which unite just before joining the 
greater river. Overlooking the pretty Dhlin valley 
before it emerges from the hills, is Altenberg, one of 
the homes of the more ancient line of the Counts of 
Berg and the seat of a Cistercian Abbey which they 
founded in the twelfth century. Its imposing church, 
which resembles Cologne Cathedral, though without 
towers, contains their tombs. To the northward in 
the valley of the Wupper, is Schloss Burg, long one of 
their strongholds, built in the twelfth century and 



424 THE RHINE. 

afterward enlarged. It is a spacious palace of two 
stories, the upper containing the Eittersaal adorned 
by historical frescoes. The old fortifications, keep and 
towers have been thoroughly restored. These Counts 
and their henchmen of the ancient Duchy of Berg, 
went to war with the famous "Solingen blades," in 
the mediaeval times, the art of making them being 
said to have come from Damascus, brought home by 
one of the Counts on his return from the Crusades, 
and thus founding the important cutlery manufacture 
of the city of Solingen. This place which leads in the 
art in Germany, now has fifty thousand people, and is 
down in the deep valley of the Wupper and on its en- 
closing hills. The town is a maze of little crooked, 
hilly, streets, bordered by the small, timbered or slate - 
faced cottages of the working-people. They make 
swords and scissors, knives and forks. Their ances- 
tors sometimes colonized far away, for one of the 
names found on old Toledo blades of Spain is German 
from Solingen. The largest factory here is that bear- 
ing the famous sign of "the Twins" registered in 
1731, by Peter Henekels, having been borne by the 
same firm since. They now employ two thousand 
workmen. Near Solingen, the railway crosses the 
deep ravine, high above the dismal and dirty Wupper 
upon the noted Emperor William Viaduct, opened in 
1897, which goes over the abyss upon a single arch of 
fi.ve hundred and twenty feet span, rising three hun- 
dred and fifty feet above the water. 

Following up the Wupper a few miles, the great 



GREAT INDUSTRIES. 425 

manufacturing centre is reached of Elberfeld and 
Barmen, sister-towns, but which, however, have the 
most intense rivalry. Their development is almost 
entirely modern, for with their suburbs they have 
greatly grown during the past century, and now exceed 
three hundred thousand population. They are seven- 
teen miles east of Diisseldorf, their products being 
cottons, silks, textiles and chemicals, and they stretch 
for over eight miles along the deep valley of the little 
Wupper, which is embanked throughout, the refuse 
of the factories making it one of the foulest and filth- 
iest streams in existence; while a pall of black smoke 
from the maze of chimneys always overhangs the lower 
valley. This river comes from the southeast to Bar- 
men, and is the boundary between the Ehineland Pro- 
vince and Westphalia, having in the olden time been 
the border between the Franks and the Saxons. 

The two places make a continuous, narrow, winding 
belt of houses and factories hemmed into the deep ra- 
vine. Centuries ago this valley acquired a reputation 
for bleaching linens, and in 1527 the Count of Berg 
gave the people the monopoly of producing the yarn, 
and they soon became expert at weaving. They grew 
in prosperity, exported much goods, and in 1610 El- 
berfeld v/as incorporated, although Barmen had to 
wait two centuries for a similar charter. They were 
devastated by fires, pestilence, and the many wars that 
swept so relentlessly through north Germany and the 
Ehineland. But French occupation, when it did come, 
did good, for they opened trade with France under 



426 THE RHINE. 

Colbert's patronage, established the art of dyeing, in- 
troduced Jacquard looms, and began working wool, 
silk and cotton, with allied industries. When Napo- 
leon's domination ceased, they had thirty thousand 
people. Their greatest growth has been since the 
Iranco-Prussian war, and within this later period 
they have become the leading German purveyors to the 
world of d3^es and chemicals, for which the little Wup- 
per has jdelded its purity. The deep ravine is also as 
much celebrated for its "Hanging railway" as for its 
manufactures, this unique structure, built on steel 
frames over the river, from which are suspended the 
cars, hanging from single rails, providing the means 
of swift and very comfortable transit along the more 
than eight miles through which are spread the two 
narrow, elongated towns. 

Northward from Diisseldorf, the Ehine winds over 
the broad plain, with railroads upon both sides. To 
the westward of the river is Neuss, where the Eo- 
mans had their fortress of Novesium, when they first 
conquered this region. From that time dates St. 
Quirinus, a Eoman soldier, who was converted and was 
the patron of the town, and the Quirinuskirche, 
erected in the thirteenth century in his honor, is the 
landmark of the ancient place. The Saint's statue 
crowns the eastern tower. This town was besieged by 
Charles the Bold but held him at bay successfully, 
nearly a year, in 1474, when he abandoned the attack. 
It was formerlv nearer the Ehine, and is now con- 
nected by a canal, the river having shifted. 



GREAT INDUSTRIES. 437 

To the westward is the cotton-spinning town of 
Miinchen-Gladbach, called M-Gladbach for short, with 
sixty thousand people, built on a hill, upon the top of 
which stands boldly in view, the old minster, a relic 
of the Benedictine Abbey which originally named the 
place, from Monclien or monks, who came here in the 
eighth century. 

Twelve miles northward and nearer the Ehine is 
Crefeld, the leading silk and velvet manufactory of 
Germany, and a rival of Lyons. It has grown almost 
entirely since Napoleon's downfall and has over one 
hundred thousand people. It has a fine Museum and 
Textile Academy, and among its monuments is one to 
Karl Wilhelm, composer of the ^VacM am Bliein. To 
the southward of the town is the battlefield of Cre- 
feld, where Frederick the Great's troops defeated the 
French in 1758. At Kempen, seven miles westward, 
Thomas a Kempis was born in 1380, this little town 
now being a well preserved relic of the olden time, 
with its ancient Stiftskirche and Castle, held by the 
Archbishops of Cologne, when they controlled all this 
region. 

The Ehine on its eastern side receives the Euhr, 
and at their confluence is Duisburg, joined to both 
rivers by canals, a great coal-shipping port and fac- 
tory town, where there are seventy thousand people, 
engaged in many industries. It is proud of the mem- 
ory of Gerard Mercator, the geographer, who lived 
here and died in 1594, at the age of eighty- two. He 
was the map maker for the German Emperor Charles 



428 THE RHINE. 

v., and first devised the method of projection of maps 
of the earth's surface in piano. His monument stands 
in the public square and his epitaph is inscribed in the 
old Salvatorkirche. The Euhr flows into the Ehine 
north of Duisburg, and at Euhroit, their junction, is 
a spacious coal-harbor and railway centre with iron 
and steel mills. 

This is a veritable ^^black-country" with the dense 
coal smokes, and is filled with coal measures, while 
twelve miles to the eastward is the centre of this 
Westphalian coal district, the city of Essen, having 
over one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, 
famous as the locality of the great Krupp Steel works. 
The approach gives a full display of this extensive es- 
tablishment with the forges, foundries, furnaces, shops 
and many chimneys, of which the tallest rises two 
hundred and twenty feet, there being twenty-five thou- 
sand workmen employed. The town has had its 
enormous growth with the development of these works 
during the past half -century, for in 1854 the popula- 
tion was barely ten thousand. The abundant supply 
of cheap fuel has been its fortune. The Westphalian 
coal measures extend about thirty miles eastward from 
the Ehine, and are from ten to fourteen miles wide, 
the output being forty to fifty millions of tons annu- 
ally. The whole district is filled with factories, has a 
dense population, and is served by a maze of railways. 
In front of the Essen Eathhaus stands the statue of its 
industrial prince, Alfred Krupp, who died in 1887, 
while the Emperor William I. has his statue in the 



WESEL TO CLEVES. 429 

public square. A Benedictine nunnery founded in the 
ninth century, began Essen, and the old Miinster- 
kirche, still preserved, is its relic of the antique. Un- 
til the beginning of the nineteenth century, the abbess 
ruled the town and surrounding district, holding rank 
as a princess of the German Empire. ISTapoleon over- 
threw this, however, and afterward Essen went to 
Prussia. 

WESEL TO CLEVES. 

The old Grand Duchy of Berg, which we are trav- 
ersing, extended along the Ehine from Cologne down 
to Wesel, thirty-two miles north of Diisseldorf, and 
embraced a wide territory on both sides of the river. 
Northward from the Euhr is a generally flat district 
as far as the river Lippe, coming in from the east- 
ward. Some distance from the Ehine, east of Essen 
and southward from the Lippe, is Dortmund, the chief 
city of Westphalia, displaying numerous old buildings 
and churches and having one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand people and important mines and iron manufac- 
tures. This was one of the Hanseatic towns^ strongly 
fortified, though the walls have been taken down and 
replaced by boulevards. It was then the seat of the 
mighty Fehmgericht of Westphalia, or the "Eed 
hand'' as it was called, the secret tribunal that from 
the twelfth century to the middle of the sixteenth 
century was the most powerful organization of that 
province, which no infiuence could withstand. The 



430 THE RHINE. 

last regular court was held about 1568. Originally 
only natives of Westphalia were admitted into this or- 
ganization, and at initiation the candidate took an 
oath to support with his whole powers, the Holy Fehm ; 
to conceal its proceedings "from wife and child, father 
and mother, sister and brother, fire and wind, from all 
that the sun shines on and the rain wets, and from 
every being between heaven and earth"; and to bring 
before the tribunal everything within his knowledge, 
falling under its jurisdiction. He was then taught the 
signs by which the members recognized each other, and 
was presented with a rope and a knife bearing the 
mystic letters, "S. S. G. G." supposed to signify 
Stride, Stein, Gras, Grein. The nominal head of the 
organization was the Emperor of Germany, and under 
him the Supreme President was the Archbishop of 
Cologne, as Duke of Westphalia. The whole country 
was divided into districts with separate branch courts, 
which took immediate action when their aid was in- 
voked. In those lawless times their influence was 
limitless. 

Where the Lippe enters the Ehine, is Wesel, a pic- 
turesque bridge of boats spanning the greater river, 
which is protected by an ancient citadel with five bas- 
tions. The Ehine is also crossed by an elaborate rail- 
way bridge. This was the old station of Lippemund, 
held by Charlemagne in his wars against the Saxons, 
and it was always strongly fortified. The mediaeval 
Berlin gate, recently restored, has statues of Minerva 
and Hercules. St. Willibrord's Church, dating from 



WESEL TO CLEVES. 431 

the fifteenth century, and standing in the Market 
Place, is regarded as one of the finest Gothic edifices 
on the Lower Ehine. In this church was born, in 
1555, Perigrine Bertie, the son of the exiled Countess 
of Suffolk, who fled, with her husband, Eichard Bertie, 
from the persecutions of Queen Mary of England, and 
coming here was permitted to live in the church. 
The boy became Lord Willoughby d' Eresby, and a 
tablet records his birth. 

The Ehine curves in general course to the northwest 
below Wesel, and at a few miles distance is ancient 
Xanten, sj)read along the river, the high Fiirstenberg 
rising to the southeastward. Here, according to the 
Mbelungenlied, was born the mythical hero Siegfried 
who came up from the Low Countries, and slew the 
dragon of the Drachenfels. Here came the legions of 
the Emperor Augustus, 16 B. C. and constructed on 
the Fiirstenberg, the Eoman Castra Vetera, which was 
for many years the base of their operations on the 
Lower Ehine, until the Batavians, as the people of 
the Low Countries were then called, drove them away 
and destroyed the camp. Subsequently they were con- 
verted, and the noted Church of St. Victor was built, 
and its construction continued during the entire 
Gothic period, illustrating the successive develop- 
ments of that architecture. The interior has excel- 
lent frescoes, carvings and tapestries. Among its 
treasures are eleventh century vestments of St. Ber- 
nard of Clairvaux. To the northwest, down the 
Ehine, is Emmerich, the Dutch characteristics pre- 



432 THE RHINE. 

dominating, for we are approaching the Holland fron- 
tier of Germany. This town lives largely on its me- 
diaeval history, and in its old Miinsterkirche of the 
eleventh century is carefully preserved the golden 
casket of the Willibrordi Arche, said to be an eighth 
century relic, possessed by St. Willibrord, the monk 
who came out from Ireland to the lower Ehine, and 
was the great missionary of ancient Friesland in the 
days of Pepin. 

To the southwest across the broad intervale of the 
Ehine, the surface rises into hills, and over there was 
formerly the bank of the river. In a beautiful situa- 
tion on the hill slopes, looking out over the valley of 
the Ehine, is Cleves, a popular summer resort of the 
Dutch who call it Kleef . The Rhine, about four miles 
away, is reached by a canal. On the hills westward is 
the Thiergarten, laid out as a park and gardens, and 
here is a chalybeate spring, which gave the place an- 
cient celebrity, and was restored during the nineteenth 
century, with a drinking hall and bath establishment. 
These sloping hills face the Rhine and give a charm- 
ing outlook over the valley. This town was the capi- 
tal of the old Duchy of Cleves, and on an eminence 
rises the palace of the former dukes, the Schwanen- 
burg, Adolph I. in the fifteenth century having built 
the imposing Schwanenthurm, or "Swans' tower," 
from which there is a picturesque view, standing upon 
the foundations of an ancient tower constructed by 
the Romans. In this castle was born Anne of Cleves, 
the fourth Queen of Henry VIII. of England. It is 



WESEL TO CLEVES. 433 

now used for public offices and a prison. Wagner's 
Lohengrin has the legend of the "Knight of the Swan/' 
which has been localized at Cleves, and the Lohen- 
grin monument recording it stands in the market 
place. In the early seventeenth century the control 
of Cleves passed to Brandenburg, and as a memorial of 
the annexation, the statue of the Elector John Sigis- 
mund, who died in 1619, has been erected near the 
palace. Afterward, the Electors appointed as gover- 
nor of Cleves, the famous Prince of Orange, John 
Maurice, Count of Nassau-Singen, the son of King 
William the Silent of Holland. Maurice became sub- 
sequently the great Dutch general and stadtholder, 
achieving many victories over the Spaniards from 
whom the Netherlands had revolted. He built just 
south of the Schwanenburg, the Prinzenhof, laying 
out an extensive park and pleasure ground. Upon 
the hills to the southward of the "Berg und Thai" is 
Prince Maurice^s cenotaph. During the nineteenth 
century this region became Prussian. The people go 
up on the Clever Berg behind the town, at an eleva- 
tion of three hundred and thirty feet, to get the 
superb view over the spacious Ehine intervale, studded 
with towns and villages and crossed by various canals. 
Far to the southwest spreads upon the hill slopes the 
great forest of the Eeichswald covering nearly thirty 
square miles, and the largest forest in the Rhenish 
province of Prussia. This extensive forest and range 
of hills are the watershed between the Rhine and the 
Meuse. 
28 



434 THE RHINE. 



THE RHII^E DELTA. 

The hill district is gradually left behind and the 
Ehine enters the vast plain of its delta, the Nether- 
lands, or Low Countries. The border of Prussia is but 
four miles from Cleves, and on rail and river are the 
custom houses of the two countries. The Ehine cur- 
rent becomes sluggish as it goes through the flat land 
and gets down toward the tidal level. Soon after 
crossing the Holland frontier, the Ehine divides into 
two branches, the Waal on the left, a stream about 
seven hundred feet wide, taking two-thirds of the flow 
and going westward to join the Meuse. The northern 
branch, called still the Ehine, is barely four hundred 
feet wide and flows twelve miles north-northwest to 
Arnhem. Near here it again divides, its northern 
branch called the Yssel going north through a rather 
barren and sandy region, to the Zuyder Zee. Some 
of the great timber rafts which are floated down the 
Ehine from the Black Forest go northward through 
the Yssel, their markets being at Zutphen and Kam- 
pen on that stream and in the Zuyder Zee. The other 
branch, called still the Ehine, flows thirty miles far- 
ther west and then divides for the third time, into the 
Lek, and the Cromme Ehyn, or "Crooked Ehine." 
The latter flows northwest to Utrecht, where the flnal 
divide takes place into the Vecht going north to the 
Zuyder Zee, and tlic Oude Ehyn, or Old Ehine, flow- 



THE RHINE DELTA. 435 

ing westward, past Leydcn to the North Sea. The 
Yssel which goes north from near Arnhem, was orig- 
inally a canal, made by the Romans under Drusus to 
facilitate their operations by connecting the Ehine 
with the stream known as the Old Yssel, and during 
the centuries it has become an important arm of the 
great Rhine delta. The Lek was also originally a ca- 
nal dug by the Romans, and in the ninth century a 
sudden flood in the river so greatly enlarged it that 
the Lek became a more important stream than the 
Cromme Rliyn. Thus the Rhine has made an enor- 
mous delta, stretching from the Zuyder Zee south- 
westward to the Meuse, into which the Lek flows 
above Rotterdam, the chief port of the lower river, 
as the Lek, Waal and Meuse all come together above 
its quays. 

The Rhine delta embraces several Dutch provinces, 
all of which Avould be subject to constant inundation, 
were they not protected by embankments. The river 
mud, uniting with the sands of the North Sea, under 
the enormous outflow of water, has. thus made the soil 
of Holland, which is almost entirely reclaimed by its 
dykes. The dyke system begins below Dusseldorf 
and extends along the banks of the various arms of 
the Rhine, to the sea, and they are generally built 
twenty-five to thirty feet above the lowest stage of 
the river. Numerous canals unite the arms of the 
Rhine with the towns and villac^es, and cross the 
country in every direction. Like all delta streams, 
the mouths are constantly shifting and during his- 



436 THE RHINE. 

topical times, the number and even the location of the 
arms of the lower river have varied. The surface of 
the country is generally much below the level of the 
waterways, and the most elaborate arrangements have 
been made for protection against breaks and over- 
flows, the whole population turning out when an alarm 
is given, and government officials having control of the 
remedial measures. On more than one occasion in- 
vading forces have been repulsed by the drastic 
method of cutting the dykes and thus inundating 
threatened provinces. The peculiar condition of the 
country was well described by Napoleon. He made his 
brother Louis King of Holland in 1805, but in 1810 
directly annexed the country to France, declaring 
Holland to be French territory as it was made by the 
alluvial deposits of French rivers, the Scheldt, the 
Meuse and the Ehine. 

A short distance northward from Cleves is the 
Schenkenschenz, a ruined fortress and now a village 
having a low church-tower rising from the ruins which 
are alongside a branch of the Ehine, south of the main 
stream. Centuries ago, the great river here divided, 
but in the vagaries of its flow, during an inundation 
the course was changed, and the river now divides 
into the Waal and Ehine at Millingen, some distance 
northwest, and the fortress had to be abandoned. It 
was here that Louis XIV. in June, 1672, with his 
troops under Conde and Turenne, taking advantage of 
an exceptionally low stage of the river, crossed the 
Ehine for the conquest of Holland. Each branch of 



THE RHINE DELTA. 437 

the Ehine has, below the bifurcation, an important 
town. Northwest along the Ehine, after the diver- 
gence of the Yssel is Arnhem, and westward on the 
Waal is Nymegen. We have crossed the Dutch fron- 
tier into the famous province of Gelderland, which 
was the ancient Batavia the Romans found on their 
march down the Rhine for conquest, the Batavians be- 
ing the ancestors of the Dutch. 

At Nymegen, which is thirteen miles northwest from 
Cleves, the Romans established the Castellum N'ovio- 
magum of Caesar to hold the Batavian possessions, 
a fortified camp and stronghold on an amphitheatre 
of seven hills rising south of the Waal. This after- 
ward became a fortress of the Carlovingian emperors 
and subsequently joined the Hanseatic League. The 
Spaniards got it in the sixteenth century and Prince 
Maurice of Orange recaptured it in 1591. Turenne 
captured it for Louis XIV. in 1672, and wars raged 
round about the place until the two treaties of peace 
were signed at Nymegen in 1678 and 1679, which 
ended the conflicts between Spain, France, Holland, 
Germany and Sweden, and then it reverted to Dutch 
control. They have recently removed the old fortifi- 
cations and made attractive promenades, preserving, 
however, some of the ancient towers. It has over 
thirty thousand people, their Groote Kerk of St. 
Stephen, the Cathedral, rising in the centre of the 
town, a relic of the thirteenth and fourteenth centur- 
ies. In the ancient Stadhuis are portraits of the am- 
bassadors signing the treaties of Nymegen and an in- 



438 THE RHINE. 

teresting Museum. The people have a favorite pleas- 
ure ground in the Valkhof^, covering an eminence 
overlooking the Waal and the surrounding country. 
Here are ruins of a palace which Charlemagne is said 
to have occupied, and his memory is still warmly 
cherished. A fragment remains of the old church 
that was attached to the palace, and the sixteen-sided 
Baptistery is well preserved, being a twelfth century 
reconstruction of an edifice originally consecrated by 
Pope Leo III. in the later eighth century. The popu- 
lar regard for Charlemagne is preserved in the curfew 
sounding before nine o'clock which they call "Keizer 
Karel's Klock/' and the finest public square in the 
newer town is "Keizer Karel's Plein." 

ARNHEM TO UTRECHT. 

The country between the Waal and the Ehine, is a 
region of rich pastures, fields and garden land, known 
as the Betuwe, or "good island,'' while northward 
from the Ehine and stretching to the Zuyder Zee, is 
the sandy region, called the Veluwe, or barren is- 
land." Canals and watercourses intersect both in 
every direction, while there are villas and attractive 
homes scattered over the surface, making a most at- 
tractive picture of rural wealth and comfort. About 
ten miles north-northeast of Nymegen is Arnhem, 
the capital of the Gelderland, which was the Eoman 
Arenacum, and in medieval times was called the An- 
noldi Villa. There are fifty thousand people in 



ARNHEM TO UTRECHT. 439 

the city which is built along the slopes of the Veluwe 
hills adjoining the river, and it is a favorite residence 
of Dutch millionaires and aristocrats, particularly 
those who have made fortunes in the East India trade; 
their attractive country seats covering the adjacent 
region for a long distance, and making it one of the 
most picturesque in Holland. This was the residence 
of the Dukes of Guelders, and their tombs are in the 
Groote Kerk, or Church of St. Eusebeus, which dates 
from the fifteenth century. The old proverb is in- 
scribed in ancient Dutch, Hoog van moed, kUin van 
goed, een zwaard in de hand, is 't wapen van Gelder- 
land, which translated reads : "Great in courage, poor 
in goods, sword in hand, such is the motto of Gelder- 
land." The old Stadhuis, near the church, from its 
quaint sculptures of Satanic flavor is locally known as 
the Duivelshuis. Among the memories of Arnhem 
is of Sir Philip Sidney, who died here in October, 
1586, from a wound received in conflict with the 
Spaniards at the siege of Zutphen. 

Westward from Arnhem the various branches of 
the Ehine go over the almost flat land toward the 
North Sea. Part of the great meadow stretching 
northward toward the Zu3"der Zee has for centuries 
been used as an exercising ground for the armies 
holding the country, and here, to the northward of 
the Ehine, near Ede, on some low hills, the French 
Marshal Marmont, in 1805, erected a spacious mound 
to commemorate the coronation of the Emperor Na- 
poleon. To the southward on the river near Ehenen, 



440 THE RHINE. 

there is an eminence called the Koningstafel, where 
the banished Frederick, King of Bohemia, in 1620, who 
sought an asylum with his uncle Prince Maurice of 
Orange and came to Ehenen, used to sit and over- 
look the wide Yeluwe. His woes and remorse have 
been described in G. P. E. James' Heidelberg, l^orth- 
westward is the Moravian village of Zeyst, where the 
community still lives in their primitive fashion, in a 
region of orchards and garden land which they thor- 
oughly cultivate. Thirty-five miles westward from 
Arnhem, in a country traversed in every direction by 
canals, is the most ancient of Batavian cities, Utrecht. 
The Ehine, before reaching it, has divided into the 
Lek and Cromme Ehyn, and the latter again divides 
at Utrecht into the Old Ehine, going westward to 
the North Sea, and the Vecht, flowing northward to 
the Zuyder Zee. Two main canals, the Old and New 
Gracht, intersect the town, while another, the Yaart 
Ehyn, goes off southward to join the Lek at Yrees- 
W3'k and Yianen, the latter an original Eoman settle- 
ment, the Fanum Diance of Ptolemy. 

When the Bomans conquered ancient Batavia, they 
forded the Ehine at Utrecht, naming the place Tra- 
jedum ad Rhenum. Being the most distant crossing 
from Eome, it came to be called Ultrajectum, and 
finally Oude Treclit, or the "old ford/' whence comes 
the name Utrecht. This very ancient town came 
under control of the Franks, with St. Willibrord as 
its missionary, he having come from Ireland to con- 
vert the Frisians in the seventh century, and sailed up 



Utrecht— On the Old Canal. 



ARNHEM TO UTRECHT. 441 

the Rhine to this place, which then was the most con- 
siderable town of that race. The Franks who had con- 
quered the Frisians, treated him well, and Pepin send- 
ing him to Eome, he came back consecrated as Arch- 
bishop and founded his Cathedral at Utrecht early in 
the eighth century. He began the line of archbishops 
who became most powerful prelates, and Utrecht in 
the middle ages was noted for the beauty of its 
churches. It ultimately passed to the German empire 
and the Emperors Conrad II. and Henry V. both died 
here. The people were, however, always inclined to 
independence and Charles V. erected the castle of the 
Vreeburg to control them, which, however, they de- 
stroyed at the outbreak of the Dutch war of Inde- 
pendence in 1577. Charles's tutor, Adrian Boeyens, 
born in Utrecht in 1459, one of the most learned 
monks of his time, afterward became Pope Adrian YI. 
The great Union of the seven provinces of the Nether- 
lands which nationalized the Dutch Independence, 
was formed in the Academy at Utrecht in 1579, and it 
became the Dutch capital until the government was 
transferred to The Hague. Louis XIY. captured the 
city in 1672, levying heavy contributions, and in 
April, 1713, the long war of the Spanish succession 
was terminated by the peace of Utrecht, and Dutch 
independence firmly established. 

This famous old city has about eighty thousand 
population, and its treasure is the venerable Cathe- 
dral of St. Martin. It was erected in the thirteenth 
century on the site of St. Willibrord's original church. 



442 THE RHINE. 

which had taken three centuries to build. It is a 
Gothic cruciform structure of brick, and in August, 
1674, a violent hurricane seriously damaged the build- 
ing and the nave fell in. It was not rebuilt so that 
now there is a wide open space between the choir and 
transept and the western tower. The interior is one 
hundred and fifteen feet high, with eighteen slender 
columns supporting the roof. There are monuments 
to bishops and admirals, and in the crypt are the 
hearts of the two German Emperors who died in 
Utrecht. In the space between the choir and the 
tower is a bronze statue of Count John of ISTassau, the 
brother of King William the Silent, who presided in 
1579 at the Union of the seven provinces. The great 
tower rises three hundred and thirty-eight feet. It 
is a square construction with an octagonal top which 
is open. The chimes are celebrated, consisting of 
forty-two bells, of which St. Salvator, the largest cast 
in the fifteenth century, is adorned with the Saviour's 
image and weighs over eight tons. From the tower 
there is a view embracing almost the whole of Hol- 
land, over the Zuyder Zee to the northward, Amster- 
dam northwest, Eotterdam southwest, and much of 
Brabant and the Gelderland, south and east, the whole 
country a region of garden and forest, with many 
villas and villages, and a maze of canals and water- 
courses in every direction. Adjoining the Cathedral, 
to the southward are fine cloisters, recently restored, 
which connect with the University. Its Gothic Aula, 
was originally the Chapter House of the Cathedral 



ARNHEM TO UTRECHT. 443 

and it has also a Library, Museum and Laboratories. 
This noted university, founded in 1536, has five hun- 
dred students. 

A most interesting old building of Utrecht is the 
"Pope^s House," the Pausliuizen, constructed in the 
early sixteenth century by Adrian VL, and having an 
elaborate statue of the Saviour on the gable. It is 
near the Cathedral and is used for various public of- 
fices. Also near the Cathedral are two venerable 
churches of the eleventh century, St. Peter^s, used by 
the Walloons, and St. John^s. Farther north is the 
palace built in 1807 for King Louis Napoleon, and 
now occupied by the University Library. There are 
several . public museums and art galleries, including 
that in the modern Stadhuis, and Utrecht also has a 
Mint where the coinage of the Netherlands and the 
East India colonies is executed. The old fortifica- 
tions have been replaced by boulevards and prome- 
nades, everywhere bordered by watercourses, and on 
the eastern verge of the city is the noted triple avenue 
of lime trees, the Maliebaan, over a half-mile long, 
stretching off to the northeast, with handsome resi- 
dences along its sides. This famous road has existed 
since the middle ages. For a long distance around 
the city, the country gives a splendid display of villas 
and coimtry houses. To the northward is the chateau 
and forest of Soestdyk, one of the royal residences. 
The Jansenists, the old Eoman Catholic sect who 
call themselves the Church of Utrecht, have their 
headquarters in Utrecht, and have about a score of 



444 THE RHINE. 

communities elsewhere in Holland. They came from 
France originally, their founder being Bishop Jansen- 
ius of Ypres, who lived in the early seventeenth cen- 
tury. Their numbers, however, are said to be dwin- 
dling. 

BOIS LE DUG, BREDA, AND DORT. 

Southward from Utrecht across the Waal is the 
province of Brabant, and beyond the Meuse, which 
flows westward to join the Waal, is its old capital, 
founded by Duke Godfrey of Brabant in the twelfth 
century. This place is the "Duke^s Wood," and its 
name in French is Bois le Due, and in Dutch ^S.Herto- 
genbosch, which is shortened by the townsfolk to 'S 
Bosch. Several canals and waterways go through the 
town, and uniting seek the Meuse, a short distance 
to the northward. It was a strong fortress in the mid- 
dle ages, and its chief present possession is the Gothic 
St. Jans Kerk, the Cathedral of St. John, built in the 
fifteenth century and having an even more ancient 
tower and chapel. This church is regarded as one of 
the finest in Holland. To the northward is Bommel 
at the head of tidewater on the Waal. Here lived 
Maarten von Eossum, the Dutch general who so vig- 
orously opposed the Emperor Charles Y., and his 
house is preserved as a relic. The Meuse and the 
Waal flowing westward, and not far apart, unite at the 
Castle of Loevenstein, and for several miles farther 
westward the united river is called the Merwede, after- 



BOIS LE DUG, BREDA, AND DORT. 445 

ward, recovering the name of the Meuse, or as it is 
called here, the Maas. It was in this castle in the 
early seventeenth century, during the theological 
controversy between the Gomarists and the Armin- 
ians, that the Pensionaries Hogerbeets and Hugo Gro- 
tius of Eotterdam and Leyden, who belonged to the 
latter sect were condemned to life imprisonment. 
Grotius, however, escaped the next year, by the aid 
of his wife, being taken out in a bookchest. 

The Merwede, about six miles to the westward, ex- 
pands on its southern side into a spacious archipelago, 
embracing a hundred islands of various sizes, and 
myriads of watercourses and intervening brakes, for- 
ests and morasses. This is the Biesbosch, or "^^reed 
f orest,^^ and covers more than forty square miles, while 
through its northern portion the broad navigable 
channel of the Nieuwe Merwede has been opened. In 
1421, the most enormous inundation ever known in 
this part of Holland came down the Ehine and the 
Meuse, and overflowed the whole country, destroying 
no less than seventy-two towns and villages, over one 
hundred thousand people perishing. When the waters 
had subsided, this morass and archipelago were formed 
and Dordrecht on its western verge which had se- 
verely suffered, was cut off from the mainland and left 
on an island. To the southwest this inundation 
opened a new arm of the sea, a mile and a half wide, 
called the Hollandsch Diep, which carried off much 
of the surplus waters. Over this channel there is 
built a fine railway bridge, on the route between 



446 THE RHINE. 

Dordrecht and Breda, with draws for the passage of 
vessels. 

Breda is about eight miles southward, on the Merk 
and other watercourses, with sluices so arranged that 
the whole surrounding country can be overflowed. This 
was a strong fortified tOwn of Brabant, which gathered 
around the castle built in the fourteenth century by 
Count Henry of Nassau. In 1696, William III. of 
England, Prince of Orange, erected the new castle, a 
square fortification almost surrounded by the Merk. 
In the old church is a significant monument to one 
of the heroes of Breda and the many wars in which it 
was engaged. Count Engelbert of Nassau, a general of 
the Emperor Charles V. The figures of the Count 
and Countess, sculptured in alabaster, recline upon a 
sarcophagus, and four half-kneeling statues bear on 
their shoulders, a slab upon which is the elaborately 
sculptured armor of the count. These statues repre- 
sent Csesar, Hannibal, Philip of Macedon and Regu- 
lus. In the church choir is fine wood carving, much 
of it being representations of monks in comical atti- 
tudes, intended as caricatures of the clergy. 

About eight miles north of the Hollandsch Diep, 
and on the northwestern verge of the Biesbosch is 
Dordrecht which was the most wealthy and powerful 
seaport of Holland in mediaeval times. This was the 
Roman Dordracum, and is of ver}^ ancient origin. 
The Dutch popularly call it Dort. Its trade now is 
largely in timber, from the rafts which are floated 
down the Rhine and are here sawn into planks and 



BOIS LE DUG, BREDA, AND DORT. 447 

other lumber by the numerous windmills perched all 
about the neighborhood. There are over thirty thou- 
sand people, and its harbor formed by the Merwede is 
very good, deep sea vessels coming alongside the quays. 
It has numerous quaint old houses and its Groote 
Kerk, a Gothic structure of the fourteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries, is surmounted by a conspicuous tower 
seen from afar. The interior displays wood carv- 
ing in the choir-stalls, executed by Jan Terwen in 
1540, among the representations being Charles V. 
entering the town in a grand procession. It was in 
Dordrecht in 1572 that the first assembly met of the 
representatives of the States of Holland which re- 
sulted in the foundation of the Dutch republic, and a 
century afterward, William III. was appointed Stadt- 
holder here. In one of the curious old buildings yet 
carefully preserved, there met in 1618-19, the Dutch 
Protestant Synod which endeavored to reconcile the 
opposing sects who were followers of Calvin and 
Zwingli, the Gomarists and Arminians. They had 
been disputing for several years, and at times there 
was open warfare. The result after a session of seven 
months was a condemnation of the Arminians. From 
Dordrecht the Oude-Maas goes westward, and the 
Noord Canal is a broad arm leading northward and 
joining the Lek. These enclose the wide island of 
Ysselmonde. On the Noord Canal are extensive ship- 
yards and iron foundries making it a busy place, and 
after uniting with the Lek, the river resumes the name 
of the Maas. The lowland borders are covered with 



448 THE RHINE. 

villas and villages, the latter including salmon-fishing 
settlements, and finally ten miles northwest of Dor- 
drecht there broadly spreads along the northern bank 
of the Maas, the city of Eotterdam. 

ROTTERDAM. 

The river, at first fiowing toward the northwest, 
makes a wide curve to the southwest through the flat 
land, around the long and narrow island of Xoorder- 
eiland. Across the island and the river are two 
bridges, one a high railway bridge, the line on a via- 
duct crossing northwest through the city at an eleva- 
tion over the streets and canals. On the outside of the 
river curve are the quays of Rotterdam, lined with 
ships and steamers as there is an enormous traffic con- 
ducted not only with foreign ports but also interior 
towns along the many canals and watercourses. For 
over a mile, the handsome quay of the Boompjes, 
named from the trees planted upon it, borders the low 
northern shore in front of the city, having the bridges 
at its northeastern end. The little river Eotte flows 
in, from which the city derives its name, and many 
canals admitting the largest vessels sjiread back 
among the buildings, being enlarged at numerous 
places into spacious docks and harbors, so that the 
whole city and its neighborhood is full of water- 
courses, the surface being a dead flat in every direc- 
tion. The southern bank of the Maas, opposite the 
city and the island, has extensive harbor works of the 



ROTTERDAM. 449 

Koningsliaven and Fejenoord of modern construction, 
greatly increasing the commercial facilities of the 
port, and in the public square on the island is a monu- 
ment to their constructor, the engineer Stieltjes, who 
died in 1878. There are spacious docks here accom- 
modatino- the lars-e steamers of the transatlantic trade. 
A capacious ship channel to the N"orth Sea, fourteen 
miles westward, the ISTieuwe Waterweg, has been con- 
structed, being finished in 1873, so that the growth of 
the commerce of Rotterdam has enlarged the city 
greatly, the population now being over two hundred 
thousand. It receives imports of petroleum, grain, 
sugar, coffee, tobacco, spices and cotton, and its fac- 
tories, ship yards, refineries, distilleries and mills are 
numerous. This recent growth has made it the sec- 
ond port of Holland. The city charter is an old one, 
dating from 1272. A great fire burnt a large part of 
the town in 1563, and it was also seriously damaged 
during the protracted wars with Spain. 

The special memory of Eotterdam is of Erasmus, 
who was born here in 1-167 and died at Basle in 1536. 
His monument was erected in the seventeenth cen- 
tury in the Groote Markt, in the centre of the city, 
while just north of it, in the street leading to the 
Groote Kerk, is carefully preserved the house in which 
he was born. Crossing from east to west between 
them, and on an embankment originally constructed 
as a dyke against inundations, is the Hoogstraat, or 
high street, one of the busiest thoroughfares. The 
Groote Kerk, or Church of St. Lawrence, is a Gothic 
29 



450 THE RHINE. 

structure of brick, built in the fifteenth century, and 
containing monuments of Dutch heroes, mostly naval 
chieftains. From its tower, over two hundred feet 
high, is given a view over the city and flat surround- 
ing country, displaying a typical Dutch landscape. On 
a clear day the towers of the neighboring cities are all 
visible, from Dordrecht to the southeast, around to 
Gouda, northeast, Leyden, north. Delft and The 
•Hague, northwest, and Schiedam to the westward. 
The city, with its wide network of canals, is well dis- 
played, the long railway viaduct crossing the town and 
river, the many watercourses all around, the country- 
houses, windmills, long straight tree-lined avenues and 
canals, and the flat green pastures and fields. Every- 
thing is fertile, clean and thrifty, giving evidence of 
the unremitting patience and industry for which the 
nation is famous. Eotterdam is the centre of a vast 
rural population, being the entrepot for many vil- 
lages. 

The city has a fine picture gallery and library in 
Boyman's Museum, westward from the Groote Markt. 
The old Dutch masters and modern pictures are here 
exhibited, and there is in the collection a Eembrandt 
called The Union of the Country, executed probably 
in 1648, the 3^ear of the Peace of Westphalia, which 
was greatly advantageous to the Dutch. It is a study 
in brown monochrome and was not entirely completed, 
being probably intended as a sketch for a larger paint- 
ing. Eepresenting the interior of a fortress, a lion 
couchant in the centre is bound bv two chains. One 



In Rotterdam 



ROTTERDAM. 451 

chain is attached to a wall bearing the arms of Am- 
sterdam, and the other is fastened to the seat of Jus- 
tice, represented in supplication. The lion defiantly 
raises his head, and places his paws on a bundle of 
arrows, the emblem of the United Dutch Provinces, 
their respective shields surrounding him. Knights, 
arming to battle for the republic are in the foreground, 
and guns on the ramparts are fired at the enemy seen 
in the distance retreating in confusion. The city has 
one of the best Zoological Gardens of Europe in its 
northern suburbs, outside the old Delft Gate, which is 
still preserved. There is also a fine business Exchange 
dating from the early eighteenth century, an elaborate 
Fish Market of modern construction, and alongside 
the river, the Royal Dutch Yacht Club Building with 
a Maritime Museum of great interest. The modern 
public park is down the Maas, on the western side 
of the city, giving a pleasant promenade amid groves 
of trees, flower gardens and lawns, and having a good 
outlook over the busy river and harbor. 

Eleven miles northeast from Rotterdam is the an- 
cient town of Gouda, its buildings in full view over 
the flat land, and noted as the manufactory of Dutch 
tobacco pipes, here known as Goudshe Pypen. It also 
makes bricks from the clay got out of the streams on 
which it stands, and sends them all over Holland, un- 
der the name of "klinkers." It is proud of the fact 
that the two brothers Cornells and Frederik Hout- 
man, who founded the Dutch East India trade from 
which the maritime prosperity of the nation origi- 



452 THE RHINE. 

nated, were natives of the town, and their bronze 
statues were recently erected. Canals pass along all 
the main streets, and of its five churches, coming 
down from mediseval times the Groote Kerk, St. John, 
is the most impressive. Its stained glass windows are 
regarded as the most important survivals of this art 
of the Dutch masters of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. The church was rebuilt often, being burnt 
in 1552, and these windows, about forty in number, 
were the gifts of princes, towns and individuals for 
the reconstruction. Twelve of them, executed by the 
brothers Crabeth during the subsequent five years, are 
regarded as the best, most of the others being by 
their pupils. The subjects are all scriptural, and the 
original designs and drawings are preserved. 

DELFTSHAVEN" AND SCHIEDAM. 

The river Maas at Rotterdam has a tidal flow of 
five to eight feet. To the westward, just beyond the 
city it receives the little river Schie, which comes over 
from Delft, nine miles northward and flows in at 
Delftshaven, a spacious canal connecting them. It 
was from here the pilgrims embarked for America in 
1620. Exiled from England, the Puritans went to 
Amsterdam in 1608, and settled in Leyden in 1609, 
being welcomed by the Dutch. Here they remained 
until 1620, when the Pilgrims having arranged for a 
colony in Virginia, they came out to Delftshaven auc! 
set sail July 22, for Southampton, and ultimately left 



DELFTSHAVEN AND SCHIEDAM. 453 

Plymouth, England, in the Mayflower on September 
6th, on their fateful transatlantic voyage. Delfts- 
haven was also the birthplace of the Dutch naval com- 
mander, Piet Hein, the noted captor in 1628 of the 
Spanish "silver fleet,'' with five millions of dollars 
booty. He was then the admiral of the Dutch East 
India Company, and lived at Delft, where he died 
the following year. On the Schie, a little way up, is 
Schiedam, a city of distilleries, noted for its 
"schnapps'' and "Geneva," which gets the name from 
the Jenever or juniper berry with which it is flavored. 
Large quantities of grain are used in the manufacture 
and great numbers of hogs are fattened on the refuse. 
A few miles farther west on the Maas, is the fishing 
town of Vlaardingen, the chief rendezvous of the 
North Sea Dutch herring, cod and haddock fleet, or 
as it is here called, the "great fishery." 

The delta of the Maas, so largely reinforced by the 
waters of the Ehine, is the most extensive of any Eu- 
ropean river. Its widening arms go westward to the 
North Sea, beyond Vlaardingen, amid shoals and 
quicksands, the intervening, low-lying islands pro- 
tected by dykes. The Nieuwe WaterAveg, the ship 
channel for Rotterdam, is constructed parallel to and 
northward of the northern arm, and then goes north- 
west past Maassluis, having its outlet to the sea, north 
of the Hook of Holland, which has become a busy port, 
with railway connections for the great traffic across 
the North Sea with England. The whole region is a 
lowland, the waves of the sea beating against the pro- 



454 THE RHINE. 

tective dykes and dunes, while the surface, wherever 
possible is pasture or garden land. 

DELFT. 

Northward from the Maas, amid waterways and 
windmills, on the fiat land adjoining the Schie, is the 
ancient town of Delft, intersected in all directions by 
tree-bordered canals, which are crossed by over sev- 
enty bridges. Delft was burnt in 1536, and in 1654 
while rebuilding was seriously damaged by the ex- 
plosion of a powder magazine, destroying five hundred 
houses and killing twelve hundred people. It was so 
well restored afterward, however, that Pepys in his 
diary, in May, 1660, quaintly describes it as "a most 
sweet town, with bridges and rivers in every street.^' 
The Delft porcelain became famous throughout Eu- 
rope at this time, and so continued until the close of 
the eighteenth century, but the industry then fell into 
decay, though it has been recently revived. It was in 
the Delft Prinsenhof or palace, on July 10, 1584, that 
William the Silent, Prince of Orange, the founder of 
Dutch Independence, was assassinated. The palace is 
now a museum, dedicated to him. The spot where the 
murder took place is on the lower floor, near the stair- 
case. The Spaniards had offered a reward, and to get 
it, Balthaser Gerhard, a Burgundian, shot him with a 
pistol, as he was descending the staircase with some 
friends. 

Delft has two noted churches. The Oude Kerk, op- 



DELFT. 455 

posite the Prinsenhof, contains the monument of Piet 
Hein^ and also the tomb and a monument to the noted 
Dutch Admiral Maarten Tromp, who was one of 
Hein's pupils and died in 1653. He was the victor in 
no less than thirty-two naval contests, in the last of 
which, fought against the English, he was given his 
death wound, and this battle is represented on the 
monument. Tromp's most famous victory was the 
defeat of the British fleet under Blake, November 29, 
1652, near the Downs, when in triumph he sailed the 
English Channel, with a broom fastened to the mast- 
head, indicating that he had swept the Channel clean; 
but the next year Blake discomfited him. The Meuwe 
Kerk, in the Groote Markt, which is really older than 
the other church, contains the magnificent monument 
to William the Silent, this church being the burial 
place of the Princes of the House of Orange. The 
marble effigy of the Prince lies upon a black marble 
sarcophagus, surmounted by an elaborate canopy, hav- 
ing in niches upon the supporting pillars, allegori- 
cal figures representing Liberty, Justice, Prudence and 
Eeligion. At the head is the Prince's bronze statue 
clad in full military dress, and at the foot is Fame, 
with outspread wings. The recumbent Prince's feet 
rest upon a dog, which reproduces his favorite dog who 
protected him and saved his life when attacked by 
Spanish assassins, in camp by night, at Malines in 
1572. His wife, and son Prince Maurice, who died in 
1625, repose in the same tomb. There is also in this 
church the monument of Hugo Grotius, the Dutch 



456 THE RHINE. 

statesman and scholar^ Pensionary of Leyden, who 
died in 1645^ and his bronze statne has recently been 
erected in the market place in front of the church, 

Longfellow in Keramos transports the Potter "on 
wings of song and by the northern shores of France/' 
and thns he sings : 

"WHiat land is this that seems to be 
A mingling of the land and sea? 
This land of sluices, dykes and dunes? 
This water-net, that tessellates 
The landscape? this unending maze 
Of gardens, through whose latticed gates 
The imprisoned pinks and tulips gaze; 
Where in long summer afternoons 
The sunshine, softened by the haze, 
Comes streaming doT\Ti as through a screen; 
Where over fields and pastures green, 
The painted ships float high in air, 
And over all and every^vhere 
The sails of windmills sink and soar 
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore? 

"What land is this? Yon pretty town 
Is Delft, with all its wares displayed; 
The pride, the market-place, the crown 
And centre of the Potter's trade. 
See! every house and room is bright 
With glimmers of reflected light 
From plates that on the dresser shine; 
Flagons to foam with Flemish beer, 
Or sparkle with the Rhenish wine, 
And pilgrim flasks with fleurs-de-lis, 
And ships upon a rolling sea, 
And tankards pewter topped and queer 
With comic mask and musketeer! 
Each hospitable chimney smiles 



DElLH I—N EAR THE ARSENAL 



THE HAGUE. 457 



A welcome from its painted tiles; 
The parlor walls, the chamber floors, 
The stairways and the corridors. 
The borders of the garden walks. 
Are beautiful with fadeless flowers, 
That never droop in winds or showers, 
And never wither on their stalks." 



THE HAGUE. 

To the northwest of Delft a little way, is Eyswyck, 
where, in 1697, the noted treaty of peace was con- 
cluded in the palace of the Prince of Orange, which, 
after the great victories of the Dutch and English, 
ended the French claims by Louis XIV. to the Low 
Countries. An obelisk erected a century later marks 
where the palace stood. Farther on, and five miles 
from Delft is the Dutch official residence of the Court, 
The Hague, its name being in the Dutch language 
^S Graven Hage, or the "Counts' Hedge,'' or enclos- 
ure. Originally a hunting seat of the Counts of Hol- 
land, in an extensive forest, it was long their favorite 
residence, and this made it from the sixteenth century 
the seat of the States General of the Netherlands, and 
it has since been practically the official and diplomatic 
residence, while Amsterdam is the capital. In the 
olden time the jealousy of the other Dutch towns de- 
nied it any vote or voice in the national councils, so 
that being without fortifications it came to be known 
on this account, as "the largest village of Europe," 
until Louis Bonaparte became King of Holland when 



458 THE RHINE. 

he gave it a city charter. It is in a monotonously 
level region, intersected in every direction by "Grach- 
ten" or canals, over which swing and drawbridges 
cross, while windmills dot the horizon all around. It 
has broad and handsome streets, with noble trees and 
attractive greensward, many fine buildings and spa- 
cious squares while the residence of the court nobles 
and diplomats gives an aristocratic air and prosper- 
ous impression. Almost in the centre of the toAvn is 
the Vyver, or "fish pond/^ a pleasant sheet of water 
with excellent avenues around it, and through this 
artificial lake the water is kept moving by being con- 
stantly pumped in and then flowing off slowly toward 
Eotterdam, where the water is pumped out of a canal 
into the Maas. Around the Yyver is the fashionable 
quarter of the city. 

The home of the States General, the Binnenhof, 
is a group of buildings on the southeastern side of 
the Vyver, some being ancient, and originally sur- 
rounded by a moat. In the thirteenth century. Count 
William of Holland, who afterward became the Em- 
peror of the Holy Eoman Empire of Germany, built 
the first palace here for a hunting lodge and his son, 
Florens, who enlarged and finished it, made The 
Hague his chief residence in 1291. All the Dutch 
Stadtholders lived in it. The ancient building of 
William and Florens, stands in the centre of the 
square, having the appearance of a chapel with tur- 
rets and high gables. This is the "Hall of the 
Knights," and is now the place where are kept the 



THE HAGUE. 459 

Archives of the Netherlands Home Office. To the 
eastward is another ancient building, the Gerechtshof, 
or conrt of justice, which has within reliefs of the 
early sixteenth century, and some more modern fres- 
coes. The northern and southern wings of the Bin- 
nenhof, are now the Chambers of the States Gen- 
eral. The old hall of the States during the era of 
the ]N"etherlands Eepublic, with its allegorical paint- 
ings and ancient mantelpieces, has been recently re- 
stored, and also the Treves Saloon which William III. 
of Orange, in 1697, constructed for a reception hall. 
Near the northeastern gate of the Binnenhof is the 
Mauritshuis, built by Prince John Maurice of Nassau, 
who died in 1679, and was the governor of Brazil un- 
der the Dutch West India Company. This building 
contains the famous picture gallery of The Hague. 
This noted collection began with paintings owned by 
the various Princes of Orange, who ordered liberally 
from Dutch and Flemish artists. When the French 
came in Napoleon's time, the best works were carried 
off to the Louvre, but restoration was afterward made. 
There are now nearly four hundred paintings, more 
than half being of the Dutch school, and Eembrandt 
and Potter being described as "the princes of the col- 
lection." There are five Rembrandts, all excellent 
works of his earlier years, and all the noted Dutch and 
Flemish artists are represented, including Eubens, 
Van Dyck, Teniers, Huygens, Jordaens, Holbein, 
van der Weyden, Steen, van de Yelde and others. 
This gallery has as its most popular painting, Paul 



460 THE RHINE. 

Potter's famous Bull. It was originally bought for 
$252, but after the French carried the picture off to 
Paris, the Dutch government offered Napoleon $24,000 
for its restoration. While the imposing Bull gives this 
picture its fame, that gentleman has several compan- 
ions on the canvas, including a cow, a ram, a sheep, a 
lamb, and a gentle shepherd. 

Upon the eastern side of the Mauritshuis is the 
pleasant public square known as the Plein, having 
various government buildings, the War Office, Co- 
lonial Office and Ministry of Justice fronting upon it. 
The square is adorned with a bronze statue of William 
the Silent, erected in 1848, in which he is represented 
with one finger slightly raised indicating his taciturn- 
ity. The pedestal records the dedication of the monu- 
ment ^'b)y the grateful people to the father of their 
fatherland.'^ The Grain Market and Fish Market 
adjoin the Binnenhof on the southwest, the pictur- 
esque Town Hall being on the eastern side of the lat- 
ter, dating from the sixteenth century. Farther west 
is the Groote Kerk, or Church of St. James, a Gothic 
edifice of the fifteenth centur}^ having a large new 
organ which is very popular. In the Fish Market, 
gather the fishwomen of Scheveningen and the coast, 
and several of the official birds of the town, figuring in 
its armorial bearings — the storks — are here kept in 
the interior court by the municipality. The open 
square of the Buitenhof adjoins the Binnenhof on 
the southwest and extends to the Vyver, and on its 
northern verge is the ancient gateway and tower of 



THE HAGUE. 461 

the Gevangenpoort, an old prison in which are now 
exhibited a mnsenm of instruments of torture. It 
was here that Cornelis de Witt, accused of conspiracy, 
was imprisoned in 1672, when his brother, John de 
Witt, the Grand Pensionary, or Prime Minister, hear- 
ing that Cornelis was in danger, hastened to the 
tower to protect him. He had not long entered, when 
the infuriated populace, who had risen in rebellion, 
forced their way into the prison, seized the two 
brothers and with savage cruelty killed them. In the 
early part of the seventeenth century the Binnenhof 
had another tragedy, during the most glorious period 
in the history of the Eepublic. The Stadtholder, 
Prince Maurice, son of William the Silent, in the 
various religious quarrels that occurred in the States 
General, became incensed at the Grand Pensionary, 
John van Oldenbarneveld, and had him arrested, with 
his friends Grotius and Hogerbeets, the Pensionaries 
of Eotterdam and Leyden, and Oldenbarneveld 
was condemned to death "for having conspired to 
dismember the States of the Netherlands, and greatly 
troubled God's Church." The venerable statesman, 
then in his seventy-second year, wrote a pathetic vin- 
dication of his innocence and on the scaffold declared 
solemnly that "he had ever acted from sincerely pious 
and patriotic motives." He was executed in the en- 
closure of the Binnenhof, May 24, 1619. 

To the northward of the Yyver is the open square of 
the Kneuterdyk, having upon it Oldenbarneveld's 
house, now the office of the Minister of Finance. To 



462 THE RHINE. 

the westward is the Eoyal Palace and home of Queen 
Wilhelmina, having in front a modern equestrian 
statue of Prince William I. of OrangC;, and displayed 
on the pedestal, the arms of the seven Holland pro- 
vinces. The adjacent squares and streets are the fin- 
est quarter of the town, and nearby is the spacious 
Eoyal Library, containing about three hundred thou- 
sand volumes, and various treasures, including a gos- 
pel of the tenth century, a prayer-book of Isabella 
of Castile, dating from 1450, the prayer-book of Philip 
the Good of Burgundy containing admirable minia- 
tures painted about that time in grisaille, and a val- 
uable collection of gems, coins and medals, with 
Babylonian and other seals and dies. There are 
other interesting collections of antiquities and paint- 
ings, in the Municipal Museum, an attractive modern 
building and the picture gallery of Baron Steengracht. 
Among the noted men of The Hague was the philos- 
opher Benedict Spinoza, born in Amsterdam in 1632, 
who spent here the later years of his life, dying in 
1677, and his house has opposite, his bronze statue 
erected in 1880. His tomb is in the Nieuwe Kerk not 
far away, where also the De Witts are buried. 

At the northwestern verge of the town is the circu- 
lar Willems-Park, while stretching for three miles 
toward the northeast is the great park of the city — 
Het Bosch. In the former is the imposing N'ational 
Monument, commemorating the restoration of Dutch 
independence in 1813, which was six years building 
and dedicated in 1869. It marks the return to power 



THE HAGUE. 463 

of Prince William Frederick of Orange who afterward 
became King of Holland. From a massive base rises 
a column, bearing a smaller one having the arms of 
Holland and its seven provinces, and crowned by Ba- 
tavia in bronze with the lion of the Netherlands at 
her feet. She holds a patriotic banner in one hand 
and a sheaf of arrows in the other. Prince William 
Frederick is represented on the side of the monu- 
ment in his coronation robes, and there are bronzes of 
Liberty and Law and of the leaders of the popular 
rising of November, 1813. The extensive park (Het 
Bosch) is a very attractive place, much of it in its 
primitive condition, traversed by avenues lined with 
stately trees, and having lakes, gardens and villas. 
At the northeastern end is the noted Huis ten Bosch^ 
or "House in the Wood,^^ the royal villa built by the 
widow of Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, who died 
in 1647. He was the second son of William the Si- 
lent, and succeeded his brother Maurice in 1625, Hol- 
land advancing to the highest prosperity during his 
career. This villa erected in his memory has a finely 
decorated interior, the chief apartment being the oc- 
tagonal hall called the Orange Saloon, the walls ris- 
ing about fifty feet and the light coming largely 
through a surmounting cupola. It is adorned by ar- 
tists of the Rubens school with scenes from Freder- 
ick Henry's life. Jordaens painted the chief picture, 
depicting the young prince's triumph over sickness, 
vice and the temptations and enemies of youth. 
The sea coast is about three miles northwest of The 



464 THE RHINE. 

Hague^ guarded by a range of sand dunes^ whereon 
has been made the great Dutch watering place of 
Scheveningen^ where probably twenty thousand peo- 
ple live, and as many more will go in the height of the 
season between the middle of July and the middle of 
September. Several roads and railways go over there, 
and the curious sensation is experienced by all the 
routes, that the sea is not seen at all until one crosses 
the more elevated dunes and thus passing the summit, 
comes suddenly upon it. The place is a fishing vil- 
lage of neat brick cottages, having many "pinken," 
or fishing boats devoted largely to the herring fishery. 
From this village for a mile northeastward are brick 
paved terraces stretching along the top of the dunes 
and down by the edge of the sea, with many fine hotels 
and boarding houses, and a large modem Curhaus, the 
chief assembly-hall for the visitors. The latter is one- 
third of a mile long surrounded by spacious verandas 
and attractively adorned. The sands are smooth and 
firm, and sea bathing is very popular. The ancient 
Gothic church of the old fishing village stands at its 
western end, but we are told that it originally was 
about in the centre. When this church was nearly 
one hundred years old in ISTovember, 1570, the village 
had about one hundred and twenty-five houses, but 
an enormous spring-tide came in and swallowed up 
half of them. The old lighthouse is near, and also a 
monument to King William I., erected in 1865. It 
was in 1673, ofi' Scheveningen that Admiral de Ruyter 
defeated the united fleets of England and France. 



LEYDEN. 465 



LEYDEN. 

About nine miles northeast of The Hague is the 
ancient city of Leyden, six miles from the sea, on the 
Oude lihyn, or "Old Rhine," its sluggish waters flow- 
ing through by several branches that have been made 
into canals. The river enters the eastern side of the city 
mainly by two arms, uniting near the centre. Leyden 
is a quiet and restful place, with wide streets and al- 
most lifeless squares, and has the impressive air of an 
academic city. Canals and moats are almost every- 
where, for the boundaries were several times enlarged, 
and the present limit, enclosing a surface rather less 
than a square mile, is surrounded by an elaborate moat 
of substantial dimensions. It produces a pensive and 
rather melancholy imj^ression upon the visitor, for 
Leyden no longer has the bustle and activity of its 
mediaeval days, when it was a mart of the first rank 
in Holland. The population approximates sixty thou- 
sand people, though in the great days of the Princes 
Maurice and Frederick Henry it reached one hundred 
thousand, and Leyden was then the leading manufac- 
turer of broadcloth and worsteds, an industry so seri- 
ously declining since that the Worsted Hall was some 
time ago abandoned. During the depression following 
the French occupation by Napoleon the population in 
the early nineteenth century fell away to about thirty 
thousand. 
30 



46G THE RHINE. 

A Eoman origin is claimed for this ancient and 
renowned Dutch city, and its oldest and most famous 
structure is the Burg, built on a mound of earth piled 
up in the centre of the place, between the two arms 
of the Oude Rhyn, Just eastward of their point of 
union. The old historians connect this mound with 
the Eoman Drusus, and the Saxon Hengist, but it 
seems to have been earliest referred to in authentic 
chronicles about the tenth centurv. The Bursr is an 
old wall, circular in form, and built upon twenty 
arches, which at a modern period has been adorned 
with pinnacles. This location is a favorite prome- 
nade, its elevation giving a good view over the city and 
suburbs, and across the flat surface to the sea which is 
visible on a clear day. There are doubts about Ley- 
den having really been the Lugdunum Batavorum of 
the Eomans, which the learned use as its Latin name, 
and it first appears in documents of the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries as Leythen or Leithen, and these 
names continued during the middle ages. Its history 
is really that of the Netherlands, the town suffering 
from the quarrels of the nobles governing and disput- 
ing about the country, and when they were not fight- 
ing each other, they were generally engaged in war- 
fare with the people. Thus, in the fifteenth century, 
it was besieged and captured no less than six times 
by the two powerful factions known as the "Hooks" 
and the "Cods." These were the names popularly 
given to the rival forces of the "fat burgher fish" the 
Kabbeljaus, or codfish, and the Hoeks, or "sharp steel- 



LEYDEN. 467 

pointed nobles who wanted to catch and devour 
them." The towns-people and these factions espoused 
the quarrels of one or other of the reigning houses 
contending for supremacy. Out of the contentions 
came the ultimate control of Holland by the House of 
Burgundy, and in the days of Mary of Burgundy, the 
great heiress, daughter of Charles the Bold, who mar- 
ried the Emperor Maximilian of Germany, the "Cods" 
who espoused their cause, finally drove the "Hooks" 
out of Leyden. Then there came in the later fifteenth 
century, the "Bread and Cheese war," caused by a 
famine, and ultimately through the Burgundian de- 
scent in the line of Maximilian, the control fell into 
Spanish hands. 

Thus was paved the way to the greatest event in 
the history of Leyden. In the later sixteenth century 
Holland revolted from the Spanish rule, made William 
the Silent, Stadtholder, and the Duke of Alva was sent 
from Spain to suppress the revolt, committing the 
greatest cruelties and excesses. The Spaniards be- 
sieged I^eyden from October 31, 1573, till March 21, 
1574, when there was a relief, but renewing it in the 
subsequent May and continuing the siege until Octo- 
ber. The latter was chiefly a blockade cutting off sup- 
plies, but William, to drive out the invaders, caused 
the dykes to be cut and the country inundated when 
the Spaniards suddenly decamped on the night of Oc- 
tober 3d, the siege ending. We are told that the next 
morning a boy of Leyden, Gisbert Cornellison, at 
dawn, thinking he saw a change in the enemy's posi- 



468 THE RHINE. 

tion, ventured out to the nearest Spanish fort, the 
Lammen, and found it deserted, the garrison having 
run away from the "Water Beggars" as they called the 
Dutch. In their haste the Spaniards had left behind 
a kettle of savory hodge-podge hanging over a smoul- 
dering fire. The hungry boy burnt his fingers in pull- 
ing out the attractive morsels, but nothing daunted 
bore the kettle of stew in triumph back to the town^ 
and soon all the Leyden bells were ringing in thanks- 
giving. October 3d was afterward observed as an an- 
nual dav of thankssdvinsi: in Levden ; and the Puritans 
who came here from England in 1608 under Elder 
John Eobinson, found this the favorite annual festi- 
val, and when the Pilgrims sailed to ISTew England in 
1620, they took the custom with them, the forerunner 
of their establishment of the American Thanksgiving 
Day. The famous "hodge-podge kettle" was long pre- 
served as a precious relic in Leyden. Burgomaster 
Van der Werff, whose sturdy resolution had so much 
to do with the vigor and success of the defence in the 
siege, has his monument and statue in a park near the 
southern verge of the city, and in the Municipal jMu- 
seum displayed in the old Cloth Hall, where there are 
many relics of the siege, is an elaborate fresco, rep- 
resenting the courageous Burgomaster offering his 
body to the starving citizens "who demand the sur- 
render of the town, or the satisfaction of their hun- 
ger." 

William the Silent, proud of the defence made, of- 
fered to reward the people by exemption from taxes 



LEYDEN. 469 

or the establishment of a University. They chose the 
latter and thus was founded the high school which be- 
came the famous University of Leyden. It was opened 
in February, 1575, in the Convent of St. Barbara, be- 
ing six years later transferred to the Convent of the 
White Nuns, and still occupying that site though the 
original building was destroyed in 1616. Its fame 
grew and it became in the seventeenth century one of 
the most noted institutions of learning. Here lived 
Scaliger, Descartes and Hugo Grotius, the foremost 
scholars of their age. Arminius and Gomarus, the 
founders of prominent sects, were professors, and 
Lord Stair, the jurist of Scotland, when exiled, went 
to Leyden, afterward accompanying William of Or- 
ange back to Britain to become king in 1688. There 
are various buildings of the University in the south- 
ern part of the city, and it is particularly noted as a 
school of medicine and the sciences, having most ex- 
tensive and valuable collections. The Senate Hall is 
adorned with portraits of all the professors from the 
days of Scaliger to the present time, and in his Eoman 
history, Mebuhr writes that no locality in Europe is 
so memorable in the history of science as this vener- 
able hall. The Library is the oldest and richest pos- 
sessed by Holland, having over three hundred thou- 
sand volumes and six thousand manuscripts. All the 
collections have been recently improved and new 
buildings have been added. The University now has 
about fifty professors and eight hundred students. 
The ter-centenary was elaborately celebrated in 1874. 



470 THE RHINE. 

In its later history, Leyden took prominent part in 
the controversies engendered by the French Revolu- 
tion and the revolt of Holland against French domi- 
nation in 1813, which resulted in founding the present 
kingdom. The open space or park on the southern 
side, where the Burgomaster^s monument is erected, 
is suggestively called the Groote Euine. This is 
traversed by the Steenschuur Canal, and has some of 
the University buildings near the northern bank. In 
the olden time the whole neighborhood was covered 
with buildings, but in 1807, a powder-ship blew up 
here, causing an appalling catastrophe, killing a large 
number of people and destroying eight hundred houses. 
The city suffered in 1836 from a serious inundation 
caused by the overflow of the Haarlem Lake to the 
northward. Leyden was the birthplace of several 
noted Dutch painters, among them, Eembrandt and 
Jan Steen. Its quaint old sixteenth century Stadhuis 
bears an inscription relative to the siege which is a 
noted chronogram. It contains one hundred and 
thirty-one letters, which were the number of days of 
the second siege and blockade, and each letter which 
is used for a Latin numeral is made a capital letter, 
so that these, reckoning each W as two Vs record 
the date, 1574. The translated inscription is: "When 
the black famine had brought to the death nearly six 
thousand persons, then God the Lord repented of it, 
and gave us bread again as much as we could wish." 
The largest church of Leyden is St. Peter's, built in 
the early fourteenth century and containing the monu- 



HAARLEM LAKE AND THE Y. 47 1 

ments of many distinguished townsmen, among them 
Scaliger, and the celebrated physician Boerhave of 
the University, who died in 1738. The Church of St. 
Pancras, near the Burg, is a large basilica and has the 
monument of the great Burgomaster Van der Werff, 
who died in 1604. There are not many ancient struc- 
tures remaining in Leyden, and only two of the old- 
time gateways are preserved, the Zijlpoort and the 
Morshpoort. A good many attractive mediaeval houses 
are scattered about the town, and the chief street, the 
Breestraat, has quaintly picturesque features. A 
house near St. Peter's church bears the inscription 
that in an earlier building on the site, elder John 
Eobinson who brought the first Puritans from Eng- 
land, lived, taught and died, between 1611 and 1625. 
Leyden has attractive Museums of Antiquities, Na- 
tural History and other collections, a gallery of valu- 
able paintings in the Municipal Museum, and the 
visitor, on arrival at the railway station outside the 
Rynsburg Gate on the northwestern verge, is greeted 
upon entering, by the statue of Boerhave, the Univer- 
sity savant of whom modern Leyden seems to have 
the most precious memories. 

HAARLEM LAKE AND THE Y. 

The Hollandsche Spoorweg, the railway from 
Eotterdam northward, through Delft, The Hague and 
Leyden, continues its route along the eastern slopes 
of the North Sea dunes, in the region known as the 



472 THE RHINE. 

Ehynland, toward Haarlem. About half way be- 
tween, to the eastward of the railway is the village of 
Bennebroek, near which at the residence known as 
Hartenkamp, for several years beginning in 1736, 
Linnaeus, the celebrated Swedish naturalist, lived with 
his wealthy patron George Clifford, then the British 
ambassador. It was here that Linnaeus wrote his two 
noted works, Hortus Cliff or dianus and Systema Na- 
turce. Haarlem is eighteen miles north of Leyden, 
and to the eastward for most of the distance is the 
great Haarlemmer Polder, reclaimed by draining 
the Lake of Haarlem. Old Father Ehine, in an- 
cient times, seems to have overflowed with his way- 
ward and various arms, large portions of the low, flat 
surface of North Holland, and in the days of the So- 
man occupation they found this lake as an expansion 
of one of the northern branches of the great river. 
In the changes wrought by repeated storms and inun- 
dations, this branch of the Ehine became partially 
closed up, and the Haarlem Lake was left to the 
northward of Leyden, having an area in 1531 of about 
ten square miles, together with three smaller adjunct 
lakes, of an area of about twelve additional square 
miles, one of these, near the city, being called the Ley- 
den Lake. More storms and inundations came, with 
overflows of the Ehine, which gradually broke down 
the barriers and made the four lakes into one, so that 
in 1647 the enlarged Haarlem Lake had a surface of 
over fifty square miles, and this had grown in 1740 to 
nearly seventy square miles. The gradually encroach- 



HAARLEM LAKE AND THE Y. 473 

ing waters, engulfing acres of the valuable lands sur- 
rounding, became a terrible menace, and in the six- 
teenth century projects began to be suggested for 
drainage by the Dutch engineers. The first of these 
was by Leeghwater as early as 1643, and other sug- 
gestions and plans ware made in 1742 by Cruquins 
and in 1821 by Baron von Lynden. The drainage 
was talked about but always postponed, until late in 
1836 Holland got a shock from two furious storms 
which threatened to engulf a large part of the king- 
dom. The first of these was a terrific hurricane on 
November 9th, coming from the I^orth Sea, which 
drove the waters of the Lake in vast and resistless 
masses eastward through the streets of Amsterdam 
and out into the Zuyder Zee. The second storm, on 
Christmas, turned the waters southward and almost 
annihilated Leyden. Then, in alarm, the nation de- 
termined to drain the Lake, and the most stupendous 
scheme of the kind it had ever attempted was under- 
taken. 

The Haarlem Lake was then about eighteen miles 
broad in the widest part, the depth of water averag- 
ing over thirteen feet. The authority of government 
was obtained and preliminary work began in 1840, 
consisting of digging a canal around the entire lake 
to receive the waters and take care of the large trans- 
portation by boats carried on across it. This canal 
was dug nine feet deep and over one hundred feet 
wide, was thirty-eight miles long and enclosed an area 
of nearly seventy-two square miles, and its construe- 



474 THE RHINE. 

tion occupied until 1845. The preliminary calcula- 
tion was made, that the lake having no natural outfall 
to drain it, at least one thousand millions of tons of 
water would have to be raised by mechanical means. 
Then a gigantic Cornish pumping engine was in- 
stalled and named in honor of the earliest engineer 
Avho suggested the improvement, the "Leeghwater." 
It cost $180,000, weighed nearly seven hundred tons, 
raised one hundred and twelve tons of water at a 
single stroke, and discharged one million tons in 
twenty-five and one-half hours. Two other Cornish 
pumping engines of similar calibre were subsequently 
installed, being named a-fter the other suggesting en- 
gineers the "Cruquins,^^ and the "Van Lynden." 
Pumping began in 1848, and overcoming all the rain- 
fall and inflow, the lake was drained by July 1st, 1852. 
The vast polder, thus reclaimed, covered forty-two 
thousand acres, and the lands were sold at auction, 
the first sale being in August, 1853. The land 
brought about $3,900,000, averaging $93 per acre, and 
the whole cost of the drainage enterprise was $5,400,- 
000, the remainder being defraved bv the nation. 
Thus the menace to Amsterdam, Le3'den, Haarlem 
and other cities was removed and a new surface of 
most fertile lands brought under cultivation, which 
has been so well developed that the price of farms is 
now advanced above $300 per acre and the commune 
of the Haarlemmer Meer, thus created, has a popula- 
tion of about sixteen thousand. The great pumping 
engines with their tall chimneys still adorn the land- 



HAARLEM LAKE AND THE Y. 475 

scape and are in motion when occasion requires, and 
immediately around them the new population has 
clustered most thickly. The roads traversing the 
commune are bordered by pleasant looking Dutch 
farmhouses and out-buildings, a half score of churches 
put up their spires against the sky-line in little vil- 
lages, and the highly cultivated fields and farms are 
laid out with mathematical precision upon the level 
land. 

Straight across eastward run the canal, railway, and 
high road from Haarlem to Amsterdam, with the 
polder to the southward, on a lower level, while to the 
northward, there is another reclaimed polder which is 
equally attractive and fertile. This is the polder of 
the Y, later reclaimed, the Y being the arm of the 
Zuyder Zee stretching westward on which Amsterdam 
stands. The Y was enclosed, its extensive but shallow 
basin drained, and across the narrowest portion of the 
North Holland peninsula, here called "Holland op Zyn 
Smalst,^^ the great ISToordzee Kanaal was constructed 
to give Amsterdam an outlet to the ocean. This work, 
necessary for the preservation of the deep-sea com- 
merce of the Dutch capital, was begun in March, 1865, 
and the canal completed in November, 1876. It is 
fifteen miles long, from twenty-two to twenty-six feet 
in depth, and the minimum width about two hundred 
feet, expanding in some places to three hundred and 
thirty feet. Three huge lock gates protect the west- 
ern entrance from the North Sea, being guarded by 
protective breakwaters, and two lighthouses. This 



476 THE RHINE. 

canal follows to a great extent disused arms of Old 
Father Rhine in its enormous delta. The eastern end 
is protected by a dam across the mouth of the Y at 
the edge of the Zuyder Zee, over a mile long and hav- 
ing five huge locks in the centre, for the passage of 
vessels and regulating the amount of water in the 
canal, its level being about twenty inches lower than 
the mean level at Amsterdam. There are fifty-six pon- 
derous lock gates in this series. The canal and drain- 
age of the polder of the Y cost about $14,000,000, of 
which over $4,000,000 was realized from the sale of 
the reclaimed lands which produced an average of 
$480 per acre. Amsterdam contributed $2,400,000 
and the Holland government the remainder. 

HAARLEM AND ITS BULBS. 

The city of Haarlem, the seat of the governor of 
North Holland, now has about sixty thousand people. 
Through it wanders in curving, zigzag fashion, the 
canalized river Spaarne, evidently an old arm of the 
Rhine and adjunct of the series of waters originally 
connected with Haarlem Lake and the Zuyder Zee. 
Five miles westward is the North Sea. The city is 
of very ancient origin, was known as Haralem in the 
chronicles preserved from the tenth centur}', and is 
a typical Dutch town. The many canals connecting 
with the Spaarne bring the shipping into nearly all 
the streets which are thus made so many quays, the 
highways mostly have brick pavements, the quaint 



HAARLEM AND ITS BULBS. 477 

old houses display imposing gables, and the quiet and 
restful air of a finished city pervades the place. Its 
history is much like that of the rest of Holland. In 
the later fifteenth century, the "bread and cheese" in- 
surgents got possession in 1492, the next year the town 
was burnt, and in 1509, the plague ravaged it. The 
"Hooks" and the "Cods" as at Leyden contended long 
for mastery with varying success, and also as at Ley- 
den, Haarlem's greatest memory is of the Spanish 
siege. This siege came just before the other and ex- 
ceeded it in the Spanish atrocities. Don Frederick, 
son of the Duke of Alva, with thirty thousand men in- 
vested Haarlem in December, 1572, and after seven 
months' heroic resistance it surrendered in July, 1573. 
The women joined bravely in the defence, and ten 
thousand lives were lost during the siege, while the 
savage conquerors, maddened at the long resistance, 
despite their promises of mercy, took a savage re- 
venge after the capitulation by executing the com- 
mandant and two thousand of the townsfolk in- 
cluding the Protestant clergy. William the Silent 
recaptured it four years later. The subsequent his- 
tory of Haarlem records its growth to great prosperity 
in the next century, and its sufferings from repeated 
inundations, from risk of which it was not free until 
the Haarlem Lake had been drained. 

The centre of the city is the great market place, 
known as the Groote Markt, and here are the most 
noted buildings. The ancient palace of the Counts of 
Holland is the Stadhuis, or town house, remodeled in 



478 THE RHINE. 

the early seventeenth centur}^ and having a Museum 
and Gallery of Paintings. Here are preserved the 
works of the renowned Haarlem artist, the rich cojor- 
ist and jovial burgher Frans Hals, one of the most fa- 
mous Dutch painters. The old Fleshers' Hall, or 
meat market, an interesting antique of the sixteenth 
century, also adjoins the Groote Markt, while not far 
away is the original town hall of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, the Stadsdoelen, the place where the burghers in 
ancient times assembled in arms. In the market 
square also stands in front of the Church of St. 
Bavo, the bronze statue of Koster, erected in 1856, 
who was long claimed in Holland to have been the in- 
ventor of printing, the quartercentenary of the in- 
-vention having been celebrated at Haarlem in 1823. 
It is historically known that Haarlem was the first 
town in Holland where printing was done, and for a 
long time there was a controversy whether Koster or 
Gutenberg was really the first inventor, though now it 
is conceded to the latter. Koster is said to have lived 
in Haarlem as an innkeeper and wine dealer in 1451 
and to have left the town in 1483, but there are no 
printed books of Haarlem of the date of 1454, the old- 
est date of Gutenberg. The Koster tradition was not 
in vogue until the middle of the next century. The 
Church of St. Bavo, the Groote Kerk, is alongside the 
market square, one of the most famous ecclesiastical 
structures in Holland. It was built chiefly in the fif- 
teenth century, being completed in 1538, is cruciform, 
and about four hundred and twenty-five feet long, with 



HAARLEM AND ITS BULBS. 479 

a high and very steep roof, above which the tower 
rises two hundred and fifty-five feet. It has a cele- 
brated organ, built in 1738, long regarded as the larg- 
est in the world, with five thousand pipes, and noted 
for the sweetness of its tone. The interior of the 
church is very impressive. Among its monuments are 
those of the noted engineers Conrad, and his coadju- 
tor Brunings who constructed the locks at the North 
Sea outlet of the Oude Ehyn. A cannon ball imbedded 
in the wall is a grim memorial of the Spanish siege. 

Haarlem has various museums and collections made 
during its past prosperity, and it is still an active 
manufacturing place. It has a spacious park and the 
ancient Bleaching Grounds where in old times the 
linens brought from various parts of the country were 
spread to be bleached (before the present chlorine 
process was discovered) revive interesting memories. 
There are pleasant suburbs with comfortable houses 
and prolific farms and gardens on the fiat land, many 
sturdy windmills and sleek herds of black and white 
cattle. In the summer time the people go over to the 
North Sea coast to Zandvoort for seabathing, that 
town having recently expanded into a pretentious 
watering place. But the greatest present fame of 
Haarlem comes from its impressive development of 
prosperous horticulture. It is the great producer of 
"Dutch bulbs," and to the south and west of the city 
are the extensive nursery gardens. These give mag- 
nificent displays in the early spring of the richest col- 
ors and diffuse the most delicious perfumes, large sur- 



480 THE RHINE. 

faces being covered with tulips, hyacinths, crocuses, 
lilies, anemones and similar flowers. Culminating 
about May 1st, this is an exhibition of world-wide cel- 
ebrity, and from these nurseries the most noted gar- 
dens of Europe and many in America, are supplied 
with bulbs. There are also spacious greenhouses and 
winter gardens, and here in all their glory are dis- 
played the attractions of the Dutch "sunken gardens,'' 
the whole region having been reclaimed lands. Thus 
Holland vindicates her claim of having promoted hor- 
ticulture more completely than any other country. 

It was through excess of devotion to the develop- 
ment of flowers, that in the seventeenth century came 
in Holland, what was known as the "tulip craze.'' In 
1634, flower raising became a mania among the Dutch, 
and the tulip, the queen of spring flowers, was a great 
object of speculation. The old burghers actually lost 
their heads in their zeal for bulb-buying and collecting 
and for three or four years the whole population be- 
came mad, and particularly so on tulips, which were 
traded in the same as stocks, corn or cotton now, and 
with as wild speculation. The result was that the 
prices rose enormously and even diamonds faded in 
the presence of rare and favorite bulbs. Then the 
bulb-raisers made fortunes, while the rival "collec- 
tors" vied in raising prices. Enormous sums were paid 
for noted varieties of bulbs. The craze culminated in 
1636-7. In one year the Haarlem growers are said to 
have realized $4,000,000 from the sale of tulips, and 
one operator gained in four months $17,000 as com- 



THE ZUYDER ZEE. 481 

missions. A "Viceroy" bulb was sold for $1,050, an 
"Admiral Liefkins" for $1,125, and a "Semper Au- 
gustus" for $3,250, while a collection of forty prized 
roots brought $50,000. But there came the inevit- 
able collapse, the speculators were ruined, prices fell, 
and the renowned "Semper Augustus" sold down to 
about $12, while the usual quotation for tulip bulbs 
is now generall}'' below $1 per hundred. In the eigh- 
teenth century a similar speculative fever, though to 
more moderate extent, was developed in hyacinths, 
when one prized bulb, a "Bleu Paste," was sold for 
$400. But the stolid bulb growers are content with 
less profits now, and they do a much larger business. 

THE ZUYDER ZEE. 

The narrow peninsula of North Holland extends 
northward from Haarlem, terminating in the Helder, 
and having to the westward the North Sea and to the 
eastward, the famous Zuyder Zee, or the "Southern 
Sea." Dunes protect the peninsula on the west, and 
the most elaborate constructions of dykes are all 
around the northern and eastern shores. The great 
inland sea, thus occupying the heart of Holland, is 
about eighty miles long and forty miles wide, having 
a series of islands stretching northeastward from the 
Helder, enclosing it, the island of Texel being next 
to the Helder, with Vlieland and others beyond. The 
river Ehine really regards this vast inland sea as part 
of its delta, and sends two of its arms northward as 
31 



482 THE RHINE. 

we have already seen, to pour into it part of the 
Ehenish outflow, — the Yssel and the Yecht. But this 
was not always an arm of the Xorth Sea. When the 
Eomans came, Tacitus says, they found Lake Flevo in 
the hyperborean land of Frisia, and the enclosed lake 
continued after their overthrow, when the region was 
dominated by the Franks. Flevo occupied what is 
now the southern portion of the Zuyder Zee, and the 
drainage and navigation works of the Eomans en- 
larged the Yssel so that it discharged much more 
w^ater into the lake. What are now the northern bor- 
dering islands of the Texel group, was then fast land, 
a broad region of fens and forests, and the woods en- 
tirely surrounded Flevo, making a magnificent hunt- 
ing ground for the w^olf and bear. Then came re- 
peated inundations with fierce storms in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, w^hich engulfed the land, de- 
stroyed many towns and thousands of lives, until 
finally the most prodigious of all in 1282 obliterated 
everything but the enclosing islands, so that by the in- 
rush of overflowing waters the Zuyder Zee was formed 
about as the world now knows it. 

Elated by their success in draining Haarlem Lake, 
the Dutch have since been forming projects for the 
reclamation of the greater portion of the Zuyder Zee. 
The plan has been thoroughly digested by a Govern- 
ment Commission, although its working out is thus 
far postponed by the uncertainty about the financial 
ability of the nation to undertake so great a project. 
The scheme is to reclaim the shoaler parts, and con- 



THE ZUYDER ZEE. 483 

ducting the Yssel, Vecht and other streams into a 
central Yssel Lake covering the deeper portion, en- 
close the lake by a huge dyke crossing the narrowest 
portion of the Zee between the island of Wieringen 
adjoining the Helder and Friesland on the eastern 
side, the length being nearly twenty-five miles. This 
massive sea wall faced with stone will rise sixteen feet 
above high-water, the top being one hundred feet wide 
and the base about two hundred and eighty feet. A 
double-track railway and a wagon road are to be con- 
structed on the surface, and an elaborate system of 
sluices and locks will control the escape of superfluous 
waters out of the lake, and the passage of vessels. 
This is the first part of the work to be constructed, 
and when finished then the reclamation of successive 
polders will be proceeded with, in the interior en- 
closure, by building dykes around them and pumping 
out the waters, as at Haarlem Lake. There will be 
four such polders reclaimed, and the estimate is that 
the whole work will require thirty-three years' time, 
of which the first nine years will be occupied in build- 
ing the great dyke. Over eight hundred square miles 
of the Zee will be enclosed, about three cubic miles or 
fourteen thousand millions of tons of water pumped, 
and the whole cost is figured at $76,000,000, including 
reimbursement of fishermen whose occupation will be 
gone. The lands reclaimed will approximate five hun- 
dred thousand acres and about two hundred miles of 
interior dykes will be constructed to protect them, 
their reclaimed surfaces varying from ten to twenty- 



484 THE RHINE. 

two feet lower than the level of the Yssel Lake then 
occupying the deeper centre of the present Zee. The 
archeologist anticipates that this ambitious drainage 
project may uncover and disclose some famous towns 
of the past, engulfed by the inundations, while it may 
also revive from sleepy decay various others now 
slumbering on the banks of the Zee, including Hoorn 
on the western shore, once one of the most active ports 
of Holland, whence sailed Scheuten who first rounded 
Cape Horn, naming it after his native place, Koern 
who founded Batavia the germ of Dutch poAver in the 
East Indies, and Tasman who discovered Tasmania; 
and also Stavoren on the Friesland shore, its ancient 
capital which subsisted in splendor from before the 
Christian era. This is a great enterprise which Hol- 
land is contemplating, and once begun the patient and 
persistent Dutch will doubtless prosecute it to suc- 
cessful result. 

MOUTH OF THE RHINE. 

The original channel of the great river of the Fath- 
erland — the Oude Ehyn or Old Ehine — flows north- 
westward from Leyden, and five miles away, reaches 
the North Sea at Katwyk. The whole coast-line here 
is composed at the ocean's edge of sand-dunes and 
huge dykes that keep out the sea, the surface behind 
til em being much lower than that of the high tide, 
which rises twelve feet. There are several popular 
Dutch seacoast resorts near by, N"oordwyk and Kat- 



MOUTH OF THE RHINE. 485 

wyk being the chief, and at the neighboring villa of 
Endegeest, the philosopher Descartes lived for twenty 
years in the seventeenth century and wrote his prin- 
cipal works. x\t Katwyk comes out the huge canal 
which is the outlet of the Oude Rhyn, the exit closed 
by enormous sluice gates. 

In its early history this region was the chief mouth 
of the Rhine, bringing down a great volume of waters 
which spread far and wide over the district. In the 
year 839, there came a terrible storm, changing the 
whole sea front and obstructing the outlets of the 
river with sand. Then the accumulated waters sought 
escape b}^ many other ways, and gradually there was 
formed a vast swamp, that during the centuries spread 
fifteenth centur}^ as we have seen, the Harlemmer 
so that many Dutch cities were endangered. In the 
Meer to the' northward was formed by the overflow, 
and the conditions became so threatening from the 
inundations that radical efforts were begun in the 
early nineteenth century to secure relief. The great 
difficulty was that the sea at high tide rose higher 
than the water level on the land, thus preventing the 
outflow. Napoleon solved the problem. When he 
made his brother Louis the King of Holland, the 
works were begun for changing the outlet of the Oude 
Rhyn, under direction of the engineer Conrad, who 
died just at the completion of the work, and his mon- 
ument is erected in the church at Haarlem. The 
works which are the finest of the kind in Europe have 
been since strengthened, when the Haarlemmer Meer 



486 THE RHINE. 

was drained and this was made also an outlet of its 
waters. There are kilns near by which convert the 
sea shells thrown up on the shore into lime used in 
constructing the dykes. 

The main work is a large canal with dykes of most 
imposing dimensions at its entrance and along the 
shore, covering the broad mouth of the river estuary. 
The canal has three locks, the first of which has two 
pairs of gates, the second four, and that next to the 
sea five pairs. During the higher stages of the tide 
these gates are closed, to exclude the ocean waters. 
When the tide falls, the gates are opened five to six 
hours, permitting the accumulated waters to escape, 
and the swift outflow washes away the masses of sand 
which the sea constantly throws up at the entrance. 
In storms, and when the winds blowing toward the 
land prevent the tide from falling sufficientl}^, the 
gates are kept closed. When they are open it is esti- 
mated that the accumulated Ehenish current flows 
out at the rate of one hundred thousand cubic feet 
per second. The works are all of massive masonry, 
upon a substructure of piles, and give an idea of the 
enormous task the Dutch have had to keep the sea 
out of their lowlands, and protect their homes. 

Thus the great river of the Fatherland through 
many outlets finally ends its noble career in the ocean, 
and with it we close our pleasant story. And as we 
leave the famous stream, its impressive memories, its 
magnificent scenery and the momentous history dur- 
ing the centuries that it has held the chief rank 



MOUTH OF THE RHINE. 487 

among the rivers of Europe, the uppermost thought 
is akin to Byron's "Farewell to the lihine/' in Childe 
II avoid : 



"Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! 

There can be no farewell to scene like thine. 
The mind is colored by thy every hue; 

And if reluctantly the eyes resign 

Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! 
'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise. 

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine, 
But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, fair and soft — the glories of old days!" 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Aar River, 43, 50, 53, 58, 93, 

95, 183. 

Aarau, village, 50. 

Aarburg, town, 50. 

Abbey of Disibodenberg, 301. 

Abbey of Eberbach, 291. 

Abbey of Gengenbach, 213. 

Abbey of Konigsfelden, 
Brugg, 51. 

Abbey of Laach, 379. 

Abbey of Limburg, Diirkheim 
219. 

Abbey of St. Gall, 174. 

Abbey of St. Maurice, St. 
Maurice, 25. 

Abbey of Saints Peter and 
Alexander, Aschaffenburg, 
265. 

Achern, village, 207. 

Adda River, 141. 

Addison, Joseph, English 
author, 158. 

Adolph (of Nassau), Em- 
peror of Germany, 223, 250, 
281, 321, 345. 

Adolph I., of Schwanenburg, 
432. 

Adrian VI., Pope, 441, 443. 

^Erlenbach River, 94. 

Agassiz, Louis, Swiss natural- 
ist, 49, 94. 

Agates, manufacture of, 299. 

Agaunum, Roman name of 
St. Maurice, 25. ' 

489 



Agno, village, 153. _ 
Agricius, first bishop of 

Treves, 353. 
Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius, 

Roman commander, 410. 
Agrippina Augusta, mother of 

Nero, 410. 
Ahr River, 375. 
Airolo, 126. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 413. 
Alabama Claims Commission, 

18. 
Alb River, 184. 
Albert of Austria, Emperor 

of Germany, 51, 250, 345. 
Albert of Brandenburg, Elec- 
tion of Mayence, 266, 281, 
281. 
Albert of Saxony, 282. 
Albinen, harilet, 72. 
Albula Pass, 133. 
Albula River, 133. 
Aletsch Glacier, 89. 
Alf River, 361. 
Algaby, hamlet, 85. 
Aiken, village, 363. 
Allee Blanche, 39. 
Allemanni, tribe, 200. 
Alpbach River, 96. 
Alpienbach Fall, 86. 
Alpine "needles," 36 
xA.lpine passes, 28, 130. 
Alpnach, village, 99, 104. 
Alpnach River, 112. 



490 



INDEX. 



Alsace, province of, 196. 

Alsenz, brook, 301. 

Altavilla, ancient name of 
Eltville, 291. 

Altdorf, 123. 

Alte Burg, Boppard, 2>37- 

Alte Residenz, Bamberg, 257. 

Alte Rhein-Briicke, Basle, 185. 

Alte Zoll, Bonn, 394. 

Altenahr, village, 378, 

Altenberg, town, 423. 

Altenberg, eminence, Bam- 
berg, 258. 

Altkonig, hill, 277. 

Altweier, town, 19S. 

Alva, Duke of, Spanish gen- 
eral, 340, 467. 

Alvenu, bathing-place, 123. 

Amadeus VIII. (Victor), 
Count of Savoy, 20. 

Ammerschweier, town, 196. 

Amsteg, village, 123. 

Ancre Hotel, Ouchy, 12. 

Andermatt, village, 91, 125, 
128. 

Andernach, town, 371, 372. 

Andrew III., King of Hun- 
gary, 56. 

Anna, Empress of Germany, 
187. 

Anne of Cleves, 432. 

Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, 

396, 423- 
Annoldi Villa, mediaeval 

name of Arnhem, 438. 
Antunnacum, Roman name of 

Andernach, 2)7 ^^ 
Aosta, 31. 
Apollinaris Kirche, Remagen, 

376- 
Apollinaris Sidonius (Caius 

Solius), Saint, bishop and 

Latin poet. 376. 
Apollinarisbcrg, Remagen, 375. 
Apollinarisbrunncn, 378. 
Appenzell, mountain peak, 

172. 



Appenzell, village, 172. 
Aquae Mattiacorum, Roman 

name of Wiesbaden, 285. 
Arenaberg, village, 181. 
Arenacum, Roman name of 

Arnhem, 438. 
Argelander, Friederich Wil- 

helm August, Prussian as- 
tronomer, 395. 
Argentoratum, Roman nam.e 

of Strassburg, 200. 
Arkwright, Captain, Alpine 

tourist, 42. 
Arlburg Pass, 176. 
Arminius, Jacobus, Dutch 

theologian, 469. 
Arndt, Ernst Moritz, German 

poet and political writer, 

394- 
Arnhem, town, 438. 
Arnold of Wied, Archbishop 

of Cologne, 395. 
Arnold von Isenberg, Arch- 
bishop of Treves, 340. 
Arona, village, 150. 
Arth-Goldau, railwav station, 

118. 
Arve River, 14, 34, 36. 
Aschaffenburg, town, 265. 
Assmannshausen, village, 317. 
"Assumption." painting, 422. 
Asterstein, village, 369. 
Auerbacher, Castle, Lorsch, 

252. 
Augustus, Roman emperor, 

31, 133, 135, 353, 431. 
Ausomus, Decimus Magnus, 

Latin poet, 359. 
Avenches, 45. 
Avenitcum, Roman name of 

Avenches, 45. 

Bacharach, town. 322. 
Bachcrcho. ancient name of 

Bacharach, 322. 
Baden-Baden, 208. 



INDEX. 



491 



Badener Hohe, mountain 

peak 212. 
Balduinstein, village, 345. 
Baldwin, Archbishop of 

Treves, 336, 356, 360, 362. 
Balfrinhorn, mountain peak, 

73- 

Ballagio, promontory, ia2. 
Ballou de Soultz, 190. 
Balmat, Jacques, Alpine 

guide, 40. 
Balmhorn, mountain peak, 69. 
Balthazar, one of the Magi, 

403- 

Bamberg, town, 256. 

Bannwald ("sacred grove"), 
Altdorf, 123. 

Barl, eminence, Marienberg, 
360. 

Barmen, town, 425. 

Bartholdi, Frederic Auguste, 
French sculptor, 191. 

Basle, 185. 

Battert, promontory, Baden- 
Baden, 210. 

Battle of Kappel, 114. 

Battle of Lake Morat, 46. 

Battle of Lake Sempach, no. 

Battle of Morgarten, no. 

Battle of Worth, 218. 

Bauconica, Roman name of 
Appenheim, 250. 

Bauer, Anselm Moses, Jewish 
merchant, 270. 

Bauer, Mayer Anselem, Jew- 
ish money lender, 270. 

Baveno, winter resort, 150. 

Bay of Como, 141. 

Bay of Lecco, 141, 143. 

Bay of Molina, 145. 

Bay of Pallanza, 147. 

Bayer von Boppard, knight, 

335- 
Bayreuth, 255. 
Bears, objects of municipal 

care, 54. 



Beatrice of Burgundy, wife of 
Frederick L, 260. 

Beckenried, village, 120. 

Beethoven, von, Ludwig, Ger- 
man composer, 393. 

Beilstein Castle, 362. 

Bellini, Giovanni, Venetian 
painter, 422. 

Bellinzona, 130. 

Benedetti (Vincent), Count, 
French ambassador, 344. 

Bennebroek, village, 472. 

Berengarius, King of Italy, 

257- 
Berglistock, mountain peak, 

64- 
Bergstrasse, district, 251. 
Bergiiner Stein, gorge, 133. 
Berlichingen, town, 233. 
Berlichingen, von, Gotz, Ger- 
man knight, 232. 
Bern, 53. 

Berncastel, wine-market, 360. 
"Berncasteler Doctor," wine, 

360. 
Bernese Oberland, mountain 

range, 43, 162. 
Bernina Bach River, 137. 
Bernina Pass, 137. 
Bertha, Queen, of Swabia, 25. 
Berthier, Louis Alexandre, 

French marshal, 258. 
Berthold II., Duke of Zahrin- 

gen, 193- 
Berthold IV., Duke of Zahrin- 

gen, 44. 
Berthold V., Duke of Zahrin- 

gen, 192. _ 

Bertie, Peregrine, English 

commander, 431. 
Bertrich, springs, 361. 
Betuwe, region, 438. 
Bex, hydropathic resort, 25. 
Biaschina, ravine. 130. 
Biberach, village, 214. 
Biebrich, park, 289. 



492 



INDEX. 



Biebrich, town, 288. 
Bienne, town, 50. 
Biesbosch, reed forest, 445. 
Bingen, town, 303. 
'•Bingen on the Rhine," poem, 

309- 

Binger Loch, whirlpool, 304. 

Bingium, Roman name of 
Bingen, 304. 

Binnenhof, the Hague, 458. 

Birsig River, 185. 

Bismarck, von, Karl Otto, 
Prussian statesman, 1S2, 
228, 263, 350, 422. 

Bissone, village, 156. 

Black Forest, 195. 

Blake, Robert, British ad- 
miral, 455. 

Blucher, von, Gerhard Leb- 
recht, Prussian field-mar- 
shal, 322, 324, 340- 

Bliimis Alps, 68. 

Bodeli, plain, 59. 

Bodensee (German name of 
Lake Constance), I75- 

Bodobriga, Roman name of 
Boppard, 336. 

Boerhaave, Herman, Dutch 
physician, 471. 

Boermund H., Archbishop of 
Treves, 322. 

Boesio River, 147. 

Boeyens, Adrian (Pope Ad- 
rian VL), tutor to Charles 

v., 441. 

Bois le Due, town, 444. 
Bommel, town, 444. 
Bonaparte, Louis, King of 

Holland, 457- 
Bondasca River, 138. 
Bonn, 392. 
Bonnivard, de, Frangois, 

Swiss republican, 24. 
Boompjes, Rotterdam, 448. 
Boppard, village, 336. 
Bormio, bathing-resort, 140. 
Borromcan Islands, 148, i50- 



Borromeo (Carlo), Saint, 

Italian cardinal, 150. 
Borromeo (Vitaliano), Count, 

151- 

Bos, eminence, Eberbach, 292. 

Bourg St. Pierre, 30. 

Boy man's Museum, Rotter- 
dam, 450. 

"Bread and cheese war," 467. 

Breda, town, 446. 

Bregenz, town, 176. 

Breisach, town, 191. 

Breithorn, mountain peak, 76. 

Bremm, village, 361. 

Brienz, village, 96. 

Brienzer Grat, mountain 
ridge, 96. 

Brig, town, 84. 

Brigantium, Roman name of 
Bregenz, 176. 

Brigelser Horn, 164. 

Bromserberg, castle, Riide- 
sheim, 296. 

Bruat, Armand Joseph, French 
general, 191. 

Brugg. town, 51. 

Brughi, ]^Iartin, Alpine inn- 
keeper, 107. 

Brunhildenbett, historical 

rock, 276. 

Brunig Pass, 98. 

Brunig, village, 98. 

Brunnen, village, 120. 

Brunnings, Dutch engineer, 

479- . 

Brunnistock, mountain peak, 
121. 

Bruno, Archbishop of Co- 
logne, 2,11^ 407» 41 1. 

Bubenberg, von, Adrian, 
Swiss commander, 46. 

Bucer, Martin, German Pro- 
testant reformer. 302. 

Buchs, village, i6q. 

Bulwer, Edward George Earle 
Lytton, British ncn-clist, 242, 
330. 



INDEX. 



493 



Bunsen, Robert Wilhelm 
Eberhard, German scien- 
tist, 395. 

Buochs, village, 119. 

Buochser See, 120. 

Burg Falkenstein, 278. 

Burg Hohenstein, castle ruins, 
288. 

Burg, Ley den, 466. 

Biirgenstock, mountain peak, 
100. 

Burkardus, first bishop of 
Wiirzburg, 259. 

Buthier River, 31. 

Byron (George Gordon 
Noel), Lord, English poet, 
12, 13, 23, 45, 47, 333, 368, 
370, 386, 487. 

Cadenabbia, village, 143. 
Caesar, Julius, Roman general, 

15,. 353, 371, 392. 

Calvin, John, French Protes- 
tant reformer, 11, 16, 17. 

Campodolcino, village, 132. 

Cannero, castle ruins, 149. 

Canstatt, town, 230, 

Canton Bern, 53. 

Capellen, village, 340. 

Capolago, village, 156. 

Garden, village, 362. 

Cardinell Gorge, 132. 

Carlo Magno, see Charle- 
magne. 

Carlsruhe, town, 216. 

Carlsruhe Polytechnic School, 
217. 

Carnic Alps, 30. 

Castello Barradello, Como, 
146. 

Castello Corbario, Bellinzona, 
130. 

Castello Grande, Bellinzona, 
130. 

Castello di Mezzo, Bellinzona, 
130. 



Castellum Noviomagum, Ro- 
man station, 437. 

Castle of Altenahr, 378. 

Castle of Attinghausen, 123. 

Castle of Baldeneltz, 362. 

Castle of Balduinstein, 345. 

Castle of Bockelheim, 301. 

"Castle of the Cat," 332. 

Castle of Chillon, Lake of 
Geneva, 23. 

Castle of Cochem, 362. 

Castle of Cube, 324. 

Castle of Dhaum, 300. 

Castle of Dietz, 345. 

Castle of Drachenfels, 381. 

Castle of Dreien-Egisheim, 
Egisheim, 190. 

Castle of Ebernburg, 301. 

Castle of Emmaburg, 420. 

Castle of Frankenberg, 414. 

Castle of Heidelberg, 235. 

Castle of Hohenbaden, Baden- 
Baden, 210. 

Castle of Hohen-Geroldseck, 
Biberach, 214. 

Castle of Ingelheim, 292. 

Castle of Isenburg, Rufach, 
190. 

Castle Kauzenberg, 303. 

Castle of Klopp, Bingen, 304. 

Castle of La Batiaz, Mar- 
tigny, 27. 

Castle of Lahneck, 339. 

Castle of Laurenburg, 345. 

Castle of Liebenstein, 334. 

Castle of Loevenstein, 444. 

Castle of. Marburg, 347. 

Castle of Marksburg, 338. 

Castle of Mespelbrunn, 264. 

Castle of Montclair, 350. 

"Castle of the Mouse," 332. 

Castle of Munot, Schaff- 
hausen, 182. 

Castle of Neu Eberstein, 213. 

Castle of Nyon, 12. 

Castle of Pfalz, 325. 



494 



INDEX. 



Castle of Rheingrafenstein, 

301. 
Castle of Rheinstein, 317. 
Castle of Rolandseck, 381. 
Castle of Schaumburg, 345. 
Castle of Scheafenstein, 291. 
Castle of Scherenberg, Ge- 

miinden, 262. 
Castle of Schonau, Sackin- 

gen, 184. 
Castle of Schopeln, island of 

Richenau, 181. 
Castle of Sterrenberg, 334. 
Castle of ToLirbillon, 'j'^^. 
Castle of Winneburg, 362. 
Castle of Zahringen-Kyburg, 

Thun, 57. 
Castor, mountain peak, 76. 
Castra Bonnensia, Roman 

name of Bonn, 392. 
Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, 

416. 
Cathedral of Bamberg, 256. 
Cathedral of St. Bartholo- 
mew, Frankfort, 273. 
Cathedral of St. George the 

jMartyr, Limburg, 346. 
Cathedral of St. John, Bois 

le Due, 444. 
Cathedral of St. IMartin, May- 

ence, 281. 
Cathedral of St. Martin, 

Utrecht, 441. 
Cathedral of St. Nicholas, 

Freiburg, 45. 
Cathedral of St. Peter, Co- 
logne, 397. 
Cathedral of St. Peter and St. 

Paul, Worms, 248. 
Cathedral of St. Stephen, 

Nymegen, 437. 
Cathedral of Strassburg, 202. 
Cathedral of Treves, 355. 
Cathedral of Wiirzburg, 260. 
Caub, village, 324. 
Cernobbio, village, 146. 
Chablais wines, 20. 



Chamounix, town, 35. 

Chamounix vale, 36. 

Chapeau, mountain peak, 38. 

Chapel of the Holy Rood, 
^teinen, 118. 

Chapel of St. Jakob, Morgar- 
ten, no. 

Chapel of St. Matthias, Co- 
^ bern, 363. 

Chapel of St. Werner, Aber- 
wesel, 326. 

Charlemagne, King of France, 
26, 115, 168, 252, 262, 268, 
274, 295, 414, 416, 417, 420, 
430, 438. 

''Charlemagne relics," 415. 

Charles III. (surnamed the 
Fat), King of the Franks, 
181. 

Charles IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 291. 

Charles V., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 221, 247, 338, 441, 444. 

Charles the Bold, Duke of 
Burgundy, 44, 46, 56, 190, 
426. 

Charles the Fat, sec Charles 
III. 

Charles of Brunswick, Duke, 
monument of, Geneva, 14. 

Charles ]\Iartel, King of the 
Franks, 262. 

Charles Philip, Elector Pala- 
tine, 224, 237. 

Charles Theodor, Elector Pal- 
atine, 238, 421. 

Charlotte of Prussia, Prin- 
cess, 143. 

Chateau of the Eremitage, 
Bayreuth, 256. 

Chateau of Liebeneck, 2)2)7- 

Chateau of Prangins, 12. 

Chateau of Ripaille, Lake of 
Geneva, 20. 

Chateau of Soestdyk, 443. 

Chateau of Strattligen, 59. 

Chaux de Fonds, village, 49. 



INDEX. 



495 



Chiavenna, village, 132. 
Cliilde Harold, 12, 13, 45, 47, 

333, 386, 487- 
Church of the Apostles, Co- 
logne, 408. 
Church of the Holy Ghost, 

Heidelberg, 239. 
Church of the Madonna del 

Monte, Lake Varese, 147. 
Church of the Minorities, Co- 
logne, 409. 
Church of Gross St. Martin, 

Cologne, 408. 
Church of Kaiserwcrth, Di\s- 

seldorf, 423. 
Church of Notre Dame de 

Valere, Valeria, 73. 
Church of St. Andrew, Diis- 

seldorf, 421. 
Church of St. Augustine, 

Zurich, 115. 
Church of St. Bano, Haarlem, 

478. 
Church of St. Burkhard, 

Wiirzburg, 261. 
Church of St. Castor, Cob- 

lentz, 366. 
Church of St. Catharine, Op- 

penheim, 250. 
Church of St. Clement, 

Rheinstein, 318. 
Church of St. Elizabeth, :Mar- 

burg, 348. 
Church of St. Eusebeus, Arn- 

hem, 439. 
Church of St. Gereon, Co- 
logne, 407. 
Church of St. James, the 

Hague, 460. 
Church of St. John, Gouda, 

452. 
Church of St. John, Utrecht, 

443. 
Church of St. Kilian, Heil- 

bronn, 232. 
Church of St. Lambert, Diis- 

seldorf, 421. 



Church of St. Lawrence, Rot- 
terdam, 449. 

Church of St. Maria ini Cap- 
itol, Cologne, 407. 

Church of St. JNIartin, Col- 
mar, 191. 

Church of St. Martin, Lorch, 
320. 

Church of St. jMatthew, 
Treves, 358. 

Church of St. Meinrad, Ein- 
siedeln, 112. 

Church of St. Michael, Bam- 
berg, 25S. 

Church of St. Pancras, Ley- 
den, 471. 

Church of St. Pantaleon, Co- 
logne, 407. 

Church of St. Peter, Bach- 
arach, s~3- 

Church of St. Peter, Cologne, 
408. 

Church of St. Peter, Ley den, 
470. 

Church of St. Peter, Utrecht, 

443- 
Church of St. Peter, Zurich, 

115. 

Church of St. Peter and St. 
Paul, Weissenburg, 218. 

Church of St. Severin, Co- 
logne, 408. 

Church of St. Thomas, 
Strassburg, 206. 

Church of St. Ursula, Co- 
logne, 405^. 

Church of St. Victor, Xantcn, 

431- 
Church of St. Werner, Bach- 

arach, s~3- 
Church of St. Willibrord, 

Wesel, 430. 
Church of Santa Maria degli 

Angioli, Lugano, 154. 
Church of Schwarz-Rhein- 

dorf, Bonn, 395. 



496 



INDEX. 



Cima di Jazzi, mountain peak, 

77- 

Cima le Conegliano, Italian 
painter, 422. 

"City of One View," popular 
name of Interlaken, 61. 

Clarens, Lake of Geneva, 22. 

Clavenna, Roman name of 
Chiavenna, 132. 

Clef, the, eminence, 350. 

Clement II., Pope, 257. 

Clever Berg, Cleves, 433. 

Cleves, summer resort, 432. 

Clifford, George, banker, 472. 

Clock Tower, Bern, 54. 

Clock Tower, Soleure, 50. 

"Cloud Mountain," 385. 

Clovis, King of the Franks, 
203. 

Cobern, town, 363. 

Coblentz, 364. 

Cochem, village, 361. 

"Cods," faction, 466. 

Coire, village, 164. 

Col de Balme, 34. 

Col de la Forclaz, 34. 

Colbert, Jean Baptiste, French 
statesman, 426. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 
English poet, 413. 

Colico, 132. 

Colmar, 190. 

Cologne, 396. 

Colonia Agrippinensis, Ro- 
man colony, 410. 

Columbaria, Roman name of 
Colmar, 190. 

Como, 146. 

Conde, de Prince, French gen- 
eral, 436. 

Confluentes, Roman military 
post, 365. 

Conrad II. (surnamed the 
Salic), King of Germany, 
15, 17, 2T0, 221, 441. 

Conrad III., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 257, 258. 



Conrad II., Elector of Daun, 
282. 

Conrad, Archbishop of Co- 
logne, 379, 401. 

Conrad, Count of the Nieder- 
langan, Salic chief, 346. 

Conrad, Duke of Zahringen, 

194. 
Conrad of Hohenstaufen, 

Count, 22i']. 
Conrad, Dutch engineer, 479. 
Constance, town, 177. 
Constantine, Roman emperor, 

353, 356, 411- 
Contianacum, Roman name of 

Conz, 351. 
Convent of Bornhofen, 334. 
Conz, village, 351. 
Coppet, 13. 
Coquempey wines, 27. 
Cornelius, von, Peter, Ger- 
man painter, 422. 
Cottian Alps, 30. 
Cottius of Segusio, chieftain, 

30. 
"Counts' Hedge," name of the 

Hague, 457. 
Crabeth (Thierry and Vau- 

tier), Dutch painters on 

glass, 452. 
Crefeld, town, 427. 
Cromme Rhyn River, 434. 
"Crucifixion of St. Peter," 

painting, 408. 
Cues, town, 360. 
Cur- Park, Wiesbaden, 287. 
Curhaus, Wiesbaden, 287. 
Curia Rh?etorum, Roman 

name of Coire, 164. 
Cursaal Platz, Wiesbaden, 2S7. 
Cusanus, Nicolaus, Cardinal, 

360. 

Dagobert I., King of the 

Franks, 204, 369. 
Dagobert II., King of Aus- 

trasia, 218. 



INDEX. 



497 



Dala River, 69. 

Dannecker, von, Johann 
Heinrich, German sculptor, 
229. 

Darmstadt, town, 252. 

Dassel, von, Reinald, Arch- 
bishop of Cologne, 401, 404. 

Daubenhorn, mountain peak, 

69: 
David, Jacques Louis, French 

historical painter, 13. 

De Witt, Cornelius, Dutch 
naval officer, 461. 

De Witt, John, Dutch states- 
man, 461. 

Delft porcelain, 454. 

Delft, town, 454. 

Delftshaven, town, 452. 

Dent Blanche, mountain peak, 

76- 

Dent du Midi, mountain peak, 
26. 

Dent du Morcles, mountain 
peak, 26. 

Der Trompeter von Sack- 
ing en ^ 184. 

Descartes, Rene, French phil- 
osopher, 469. 

Dettingen, town, 266. 

Detzam, village, 259. 

Deutsche Eck, Coblentz, 2^6. 

"Devil's Bridge," 126. 

"Devil's Ladder," Lorch, 321. 

"Devil's Valley," 134. 

Dhiin River, 420. 

Diet of Worms, 247. 

Diether IIL, Count, 331. 

Diether, Elector of Isenburg, 
282. 

Dietkirchen, ancient church, 
346. 

Dietz, village, 345. 

Dill River, 346. 

Dilsberg, town, 234. 

Dinaric Alps, 30. 

Diocletian, Roman emperor, 

353. 
32 



Disibodus, Bishop, mission- 
ary, 300. 

Dole, mountain peak, 12. 

Dom, mountain peak, yy. 

Domo d'Ossola, 86. 

Domodossola, village, 152. 

Donaueschingen, town, 214. 

Donnersberg, mountain peak, 
250. 

Dora Baltea River, 31. 

Dordracum, Roman name of 
Dordrecht, 446. 

Dordrecht, island, 445, 446. 

Dort, Dutch name of Dord- 
recht, 446. 

Dortmund, 429. 

Douay, French general, 218. 

Doveria River, 85. 

Drachenfels, mountain peak, 
383, 384; 3S6. 

Drance River, 20. 

Drei Schwestern, mountain 
peaks, 169. 

Dreisam River, 192. 

Drusus, Claudius Nero, Ro- 
man general, 279, 365, 372. 

Drusus Tower, Mayence, 284. 

Dubs, Jakob, Swiss publicist 
and statesman, 115. 

Dudo IV., Count of Nassau, 

345- 
Duisburg, town, 427. 
Duns Scotus, John, theologian 

and metaphysician, 409. 
Diiren, town, 414. 
Diirkheim, town, 219. 
Diisselbach River, 420. 
Diisseldorf, 420. 
Diisseldorf Academy of Art, 

421. 
"Dutch bulbs," 479. 
Dutch Protestant Synod, 447. 
Dyke system, 435. 



"Earth-men," 321. 
Eau de Cologne, 412. 



498 



INDEX. 



Eberhard Ludwig, Duke of 
Wurtemberg, 231. 

Eberhart, Duke of Wurtem- 
berg, 227. 

Eberbach, valley, 233. 

Ebersteinberg, village, 212. 

Ecolampadius, John, German 
reformer, 187. 

Ede, town, 439. 

Edward III., King of Eng- 
^ land, 371. 

Eggishorn, mountain peak, 89. 

Eginhard, French historian, 

_ 420. 

Egisheim, village, 190. 

Ehrenbreitstein, Coblentz, 364, 
368. 

Ehrenburg Castle, 362. 

Ehrenfels Castle, 306. 

Eiger, mountain peak, 64. 

Einsiedeln, pilgrim resort, 
112. 

Elberfeld, town, 425. 

Eleven thousand virgins, le- 
gend of, 405. 

Elisabeth - Quelle, spring, 
Kreuznach, 302. 

Elisabethbrunnen, spring, 
Homburg, 277. 

Ellererberg, 361. 

Eltville, town, 291. 

Eltz River, 362. 

Elz River, 233. 

Emmerich, town, 431. 

Emperor William Tunnel, 
361. 

Emperor William Viaduct, 
424. 

Ems, watering-place, 343. 

Endegeest, villa, 485. 

Ender River, 362. 

Engadine, the, 135. 

Engelbert, Archbishop of Co- 
logne, 409. 

Engelbert, Count of Nassau, 
446. 

Enz River, 230. 



Erasmus, Desiderius, Dutch 
scholar and philosopher, 
185, 187, 449. 

Erbach, town, 291. 

Erfelden, town, 250. 

Erpeler Lei, clifif, 378. 

Erwin, John, German archi- 
tect, 203. 

Escher, Alfred, Swiss states- 
man, 118. 

Escher Canal, 116. 

Eschweiler, town, 414. 

Essen, 428. 

Eticho, Duke of Alsace, 198. 

Eugene, Duke of Wurtem- 
berg, 229. 

Eugene IV., Pope, 187. 

Falkenberg, von, Engelbert, 
Archbishop of Bonn, 393. 

Falkenburg, castle, 319. 

Fall of the Gutach, Black 
Forest, 214. 

Fanum Dianae, Roman settle- 
ment, 440. 

Farel, Guillaume, French Pro- 
testant reformer, 49. 

Farina, Jean Maria, original 
compounder of Eau de Co- 
logne, 412. 

Farno Glacier, 136. 

Fastrada, third wife of Char- 
lemagne, 282. 

Faulhorn, mountain peak, 67. 

Fehmgericht, secret tribunal, 
429. 

Feldberg, Black Forest, 196. 

Felix v., Pope, 20. 

Ferdinand I., Emperor of 
Germany, 415, 

Ferney, villa, 13. 

Festival of St. Roch, Bingen, 

305- 
Fcyenoord, Rotterdam, 449. 
Fichtelgebirgc, mountain 

range, 254. 
Fiesch, hamlet, 89. 



INDEX. 



499 



Fieschbach River, 89. 
Finsteraarhorn, ni o u 11 1 a i n 

peak, 64, 93. 
Finstermunz, gorge, 135. 
"Fishermen's Gorge," Lake 

Lugano, 155. 
Fiume Latte, cascade, 142. 
Fleckertshohe, Boppard, 22)7- 
Fletschhorn, mountain peak, 

85. 

Fluellen, village, 100, 121. 

"Ford of the Franks," Frank- 
fort, 268. 

Fornicher Kopf, eminence, 

37Z- 
Fractus Mons, ancient name 

of Mount Pilatus, 106. 
Franco-German War, cause 

of, 343- 
Franconia Fountain, Wiirz- 

burg, 259. 
BVankfort on the Main, 267. 

Borne Platz, 270. 

Central Railway Station, 
271. 

coronation ceremonies, 
274. 

Dom, the, 273. 

early history, 268. 

Eschenheimer.Thurm, 275. 

Fahrgasse, 274. 

Goethe Platz, 271. 

Grosse Hirschgraben, 269. 

Gutenberg monument, 271. 

Jewish population, 269. 

Judengasse (Jews' Quar- 
ter), 270. 

Justitia, Fountain, 272. 

Kaiser Strasse, 271. 

Kaisersaal, 273. 

Leinwandhaus, 274. 

Municipal Museum, 274. 

Nicolaikirche, 273. 

Old Bridge, 274. 

Opera House, 275. 

population, 268. 

Romerberg, 272. 



Ross Markt, 271, 
Schiller Platz, 271. 
Schone Aussicht, 275. 
Stiidel Art Institute, 275. 
surroundings, 269. 
Wahlkapelle, 274. 
Ziel, the, business high- 
way, 272. 
Franzenshohe, village, 140. 
Frederick I. (surnamed Bar 
barossa). Emperor of Ger- 
many, 146, 21 8, 260, 376, 404, 
417, 423. 
Frederick IL, Emperor of 

Germany, 347. 
Frederick IIL, Emperor of 

Germany, 286. 
Frederick IL (surnamed the 
Great), King of Prussia, 
256, 427. 
Frederick William III., King 

of Prussia, 410. 
Frederick William IV., King 

of Prussia, 351, 355. 
Frederick, King of Bohemia, 

440. 
Frederick, Elector Palatine, 

220, 224. 
Freaerick Charles Joseph, 
Elector of Brandenberg, 
206. 
Frederick Henry, Prince of 

Orange, 463. 
Frederick of Saxony, 248. 
Frederick Barbarossa, see 

Frederick I. 
Freiburg, 44, 192. 
Friedrichshafen, bathing-re- 
sort, 176. 
Frutigen, village, 68. 
Furka, fortress, 91. 
Furka Pass, 91. 
Fiirst, Swiss patriot, 105. 
Fiirstenberg, castle, 321. 
Fust, Johann, associate of 
Gutenberg, 271, 283. 



500 



INDEX. 



Galenstock, mountain peak, 

122, 

"Garden of Lombardy," 145. 

Garibaldi, Guiseppe, Italian 
patriot and general, 143, 149. 

Gaspar, one of the Magi, 403. 

Geiler, Johann, Swiss preach- 
er, 204. 

Geistes-Gruss, 339. 

Gemmi Pass, 59, 68. 

Gemiinden, town, 262. 

Geneva, 13. 

Geneva, a kind of spirit, 453. 

Gensfleisch, Johann Zum 
(surnamed Gutenberg), 283. 

George, Margrave of Bran- 
denburg, 221. 

Gerda of Rheinstein, 318. 

Gerechtshof, the Hague, 459. 

Gereon, leader of the Thebian 
Legion, 407. 

Gerhard, Balthaser, assassin, 

454- 
German National Monument, 

Niederwald, 297. 
Germanicus, Caesar, Roman 

general, 278. 
Gerolsau River, 212. 
Gersau, village, 120. 
Gessler, tyrant, 104, 123. 
Gevangenpoort, the Hague, 

461. 
Geyersberg, eminence, 264. 
Gibbon, Edward, English his- 
torian, II. 
Giessbach Fall, 97. 
Giessbach River, 97. 
Giessen, town, 346. 
Gisela, Queen of Germany, 

219. 
Giswil, village, 98. 
Glacier des Bois, 38. 
Glacier des Bossons, 42. 
Glaciers, formation of, 8. 
Gletsch, valley, 91. 
Godesberg, town, 383. 
Godfrey, Duke of Brabant, 

444. 



Goehen, von, general, 367. 

Goethe, von, Johann Wolf- 
gang, German poet, 4, 204, 
205, 207, 232, 269, 271, 272, 

292, 305, .339, 346. 
Goldach River, 174, 
"Goldau Landslip," 118. 
Golden Bull of Charles IV., 

268, 274. 
'"Golden Corkscrew," inn, 

Oberwesel, 326. 
Golden Legend, 80, 127, 162. 
''Goldene Meil," region, 375. 
Gomarus, Francis, theologian, 

469. 
Gondo, village, 86. 
Gondo Ravine, 85. 
Gondorf, village, 363. 
Gorge of the Trient River, 26. 
Corner Glacier, 75. 
Corner Grat, mountain peak, 

75- 

Goschenen, village, 123, 125. 

Gottlieben, village, 180. 

Gouda, town, 451. 

Goudshe Pypen, 451. 

"Grachten," canals, 458. 

Grafenberg Castle, 360. 

Grafenberg, vineyard, 291. 

Grafenwerth, island, 380. 

Graian Alps, 29. 

Grand Ducal Palace, Darm- 
stadt, 253. 

Grand Pont Suspendn, Frei- 
burg, 44. 

Great Council of Basle, 187. 

Great Feldberg, hill, 276. 

Great My ten, mountain peak, 
119. 

Great Rhine Gorge, 316. 

Great St. Bernard Pass, 28, 
30. 

Gregory X., Pope, 11. 

Gregory XVI.. Pope, 266. 

Grengiols, village, 90, 

Grimsel Hospice, 93. 

Grimsel Pass, 91. 

Grindewald, valley, 66, 



INDEX. 



501 



Grindewald, village, 66. 

Groote Kerk, Dordrecht, 447. 

Groote Markt, Haarlem, 477. 

Grosse Belchen, mountain 
peak, 190. 

Grossmiinster, Zurich, 115. 

Grotius, Hugo, Dutch jurist 
and theologians, 445, 455, 
461, 469. 

Grotto of Osteno, Lake Lu- 
gano, 155. 

Griinewald, Matthaus, Ger- 
man painter, 259, 266. 

Gryn, Burgomaster of Co- 
logne, 410. 

Gunpowder, invention of, 193. 

Gunther von Schwarzburg, 
King of the Germans, 274, 
291. 

Gustavus Adolphus, King ot 
Sweden, 250, 261, 281, 330. 

Gutenberg, Johann, inventor 
of printing, 205, 271, 283, 
284, 291. 

Gutenberg's original printed 
Bible, Aschaffenburg, 265. 

Guyer-Zeller, Herr, projector 
of Alpine railway, 65. 

Haarlem, 472, 476. 
Haarlem Lake, 472. 
Haarlemmer ]\Ieer, commune, 

474- 

Haarlemmer Polder, 472. 

Halden, Arnold, Swiss pa- 
triot, 105. 

"Hall of the Knights," the 
Hague, 458. 

Hals, Frans, Flemish portrait- 
painter, 478. 

Hammerstein, rock, 373. 

Hanau, town, 266. 

Handegg Falls, 94. 

"Hanging railway," 426. 

"Hanseln," ordeal, 329. 

Haralem, ancient name of 
Haarlem, 476. 



Harder, Johann Jakob, Swiss 
physician and scientific 
writer, 204. 

Hasenbiihl, eminence, 250. 

Hattenheim, town, 291. 

Hatto, Archbishop, 306. 

Hauff, Wilhelm, German nov- 
elist, 230. 

Heathens' Tower, Igel, 352. 

Heathens' Wall, Kreuznach, 
302. 

Hegel, George Wilhelm Fried- 
rich, German philosopher, 
230. 

Heidelberg, 235. 

Heidelberg, 440, 

Heidelberg Tun, 238. 

Heilbronn, mineral springs re- 
sort, 231. 

Heiligenberg, hill, Heidelberg, 

235- 

Heimberg, castle, 320. 

Hein, Pieter, Dutch admiral, 
453, 455-. 

Heine, Heinrich, German poet 
and author, 328, 422. 

Heinrich, Count, 282. 

Heinzenberg, 169. 

Heisterbacker-Mantel, valley 
of the, 386. 

Helder, island, 481. 

Helena, Empress, see Saint 
Helena. 

Helvetii, Celtic tribe, 4. 

Henckels, Peter, cutlery man- 
ufacturer, 424. 

Henri IV. (surnamed the 
Great), King of France, 18. 

Henry II. (surnamed the 
Saint), Emperor of Ger- 
many, 113, 186, 256, 258, 418. 

Henry III., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 221. 

Henry IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 221, 301, 373, 423. 

Henry V., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 301, 441. 



502 



INDEX. 



Henry VII., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 282, 336. 

Henry, Count of Nassau, 446. 

Henryj Count Palatine, 380. 

Henry of Isenberg, 374. 

Hermance, brook, 19. 

Hermann IV., Duke of Baden, 
211. 

Hesse, duchy, 253. 

Hessian mercenaries, 253. 

Het Basch, the Hague, 462. 

Hilchen, Johann, knight, 320. 

Hildebold, chaplain to Char- 
lemagne, 398. 

Hildegard, Abbess, 112. 

Hildegard, prophetess, 305. 

Hildegunde, affianced of Ro- 
land, 381. 

Hinter Rhine, 163. 

Hinterhaus, vineyard, 296. 

Hinterruck, mountain peak, 

117. 

Hirschhorn, town, 234. 

Hoche, Lazare, French gen- 
eral, 367, 371. 

Hochheim, wine district, 279. 

Hochst, town, 279. 

Hofkirche of St. Leodegar, 
Lucerne, 102. 

Hals, Frans, Flemish portrait- 

Hogerbeets, Pensionary of 
Leyden, 445, 461. 

Hohe Acht, mountain peak, 

379- 
Hohen-Rhaetien, ancient cas- 
tle, 169. 
Hohenhowen, volcanic peak, 

181. 
Hohenstoffein, volcanic peak, 

181. 
Hohentwicl, fortress, Wui- 

temburg, t8i. 
Hoheweg, avenue, Interlaken, 

61. 
Hohle Gasse, Lake Lucerne, 

104. 



Holbein (Hans) the Younger, 
German painter, 187, 253, 

"Hole of Bingen," whirlpool, 
304. 

Holland op Zym Smalst, pen- 
insula, 475. 

Hollandsch Diep, channel, 
445. 

"Holy Coat," Treves, 356. 

"Holy Steps," Poppelsdorf, 

. 395- 
Homburg, mineral spring re- 
sort, 277. 
Hoogstraat, Rotterdam, 449. 
"Hooks," faction, 466. 
Hoorn, town, 484. 
Horchheim, w^ine district, 341. 
Hornberg, summer resort. 214. 
Hortense Eagenie de Beau- 

harnais, Queen of Holland, 

181. 
Hortiis Cliff ordianus, 472. 
Hospenthal, village, 128. 
Hospice of the Great St. Ber- 
nard, 2>Z- 
Hotel Gibbon, Lausanne, 11. 
Houtman, Cornelius, Dutch 

navigator, 451. 
Houtman, Frederik, Dutch 

navigator, 451. 
Howard, Mr., Alpine tourist, 

40. 
Hiibsch, Heinrich, German 

architect, 217. 
Hugi, Franz Joseph, Swiss 

naturalist, 93. 
Hugo, Victor Marie, French 

poet and novelist, 316, 341, 

2>72. 
Huguenots, derivation of 

name, 16. 
Huis ten Bosch, the Hague, 

463- 
Huss, John, Bohemian re- 
former of the Church, 178, 
248. 



INDEX. 



503 



Htitten, von, Ulrich, German 
poet and Protestant re- 
former, 112, 302. 

Huygens, painter, 459. 

Iffland, August Wilhelm, Ger- 
man actor and dramatist, 
224. 

Igel, village, 352. 

He Rousseau, Lake of Geneva, 
14. 

Ill River, 189, 200. 

Imperial Chateau of Biburk, 
289. 

Inden, hamlet, 72. 

Inn River, 133, 134. 

Innocent, XL, Pope, 146. 

Interlaken, 58, 61, 

International Postal Union, 
founding of, 55. 

Intra, town, 149. 

Irmangard, widow of Her- 
mann IV. of Baden, 211. 

Iron Tower, Mayence, 285. 

Isabella of Castile, 462. 

Iselle, valley, 86. 

Isenach River, 219. 

Isola Bella, 151. 

Isola Madre, 150. 

Isola dei Pescatori, 151. 

Isola San Giovanni, 150. 

Jacobi, Heinrich Friedricn, 

German philosopher, 422. 
Jagst River, 233. 
James, G. P. R., author, 440. 
Janssen, Peter, German fresco 

painter, 422. 
Janssen, Pierre Charles Cesar, 

French astronomer, 41. 
Jansenists, sect, 443. 
Jansenius, Bishon. founder of 

the Jajisenists, 444. 
Jerome of Prague, follower of 

John Huss, 179, 240. 
Jcttenbuttel, hill, Heidelberg, 

235- 



"Jews' toll," 317. 

Johann, King of Liechten- 
stein, 169. 

Johann Wilhelm, Count Pala- 
tine, 239. 

Johannisberger, wine, 294. 

John, King of Bohemia, 282, 

351. 

John, Elector of Saxony, 221. 

John Sigismund, Elector of 
Brandenburg, 433. 

John William, Elector Pala- 
tine, 421. 

John of Nassau, 442. 

John of Swabia (surnamed 
the Parricide), 51. 

Jordaens, Jakob, Dutch paint- 
er, 459, 463. 

Jubilee Column, Stuttgart, 
226. 

Judengasse, Worms, 249. 

Julian, Roman emperor, 200. 

Julia River, 133. 

Julian Alps, 30. 

Julier Pass, 133. 

Julius, Bishop, 261, 264. 

Jungfrau, mountain peak, 64. 

Jungfrau Joch, mountain peak. 

65. 
Jupiter Penninus, Roman 
deity, 31, 33. 

Kaiser - Wilhelm Strasse, 

Wiesbaden, 286. 
Kaiserglocke, bell, Cologne 

Cathedral, 400. 
Kaiserstuhl, mountain peak, 

98. 

Kander River, 58, 69. 

Kandersleg, village, 68. 

Kapellbrticke, bridge, Lu- 
cerne, 102. 

Kappel, village, 114. 

Karlstadt, town, 262. 

Kaskeller, grotto, 361. 

Kastelhorn, mountain peak. 
125. 



504 



INDEX. 



Katwyk, seacoast resort, 484. 
Katzenbuckel, hill, 2^;^. 
Kaysersberg, town, 196. 
Kedrich, Mountain, 321. 
Kdil, town, 207. 
Keizer Karel's Plein, Nyme- 

gen, 438. 
Kellermann, Frangois Chris- 

tophe, French marshal, 294. 
Kemmenauer Hohe, eminence, 

Ems, 343. 
Kempen, town, 427. 
Kempis, a, Thomas, German 

ascetic writer, 427. 
K era m OS J 456. 
Kiedrich, village, 291. 
Kienthal Riv^r, 68. 
Kienzheim, town, 196. 
King Ludwig's Pompeianum, 

Aschaffenburg, 266. 
"King's Seat," Heidelberg, 

235- 

Kinzig River, 207, 213. 

Kirchofer, Werner, German 
hero, 184. 

Kissell, brook, 291. 

Kissengen, watering-place, 
262. 

Klaus, Serrig, 351. 

Kleber, Jean Baptiste, French 
general, 205, 367. 

Kleinescheidegg, mountain 
peak, 65. 

Klingenberg, wine district, 
265. 

Kneuterdyk, the Hague, 461. 

Knox, John, Scottish Protes- 
tant reformer, 16. 

Kochbrunnen, spring, Wies- 
baden, 287. 

Koningshaven, Rotterdam, 

449- 
Konigshofcn, village, 199. 
Konigskrenz, Worms, 250. 
Konigstafel, Rhenen, 440. 
Koningstein, ruined castle, 

278. 



Konigsstuhl, Rhens, 338. 
Konigstiihl, rock, Heidelberg, 

Konigswinter, village, 384. 

Kosciusko, Thaddeus, Polish 
patriot and general, 50. 

Koster, Laurens Janszoon, 
Dutch printer, 478. 

Krahnenberg, eminence, 373. 

Kreuzberg, Poppelsdorf, 395. 

Kreuznach, bathing-resort, 
302. 

Krummbach River, 85. 

Krupp, Alfred, iron manufac- 
turer, 428. 

Krupp Steel Works, Essen, 
428. 

Kiihkopf, Coblentz, 367. 

Kunigunde, Empress of Ger- 
many, 186, 257, 258. 

Kuno von Falkenstein, Arch- 
bishop of Treves, 278, 318^ 
332, 366. 

Kiissnacht, village, 100, 104. 

La Harpe, Frederic Cesar, 

Swiss officer, 12. 
Laacher See, 379. 
Lac Leman, modern name of 

Lake Geneva, 7. 
Lacus Aventicencis, Roman 

name of Lake Morat, 46. 
Lacus Brigantinus, Roman 

name of the Bodensee. 176. 
Lacus Eburodunensis, Roman 

name of Lake Neuchatel, 48. 
Lacus Larius, Roman name of 

Lake Como, 140. 
Lacus Lemanus, Roman name 

of Lake Geneva, 7. 
Lacus Verbanus, Roman name 

of Lage Maggiore, 148. 
Lahn River, 340, 342. 
Lake Agen, no. 
Lake Bienne, 50. 
Lake Brienz, 58, 96. 
Lake Campfer, 136. 



INDEX. 



505 



Lake Como, 140, 

Lake Constance, 175. 

Lake Daubensee, 69. 

Lake Flevo, 482. 

Lake Geneva, 6. 

Lake Grimsel, 92. 

Lake Lucendro, 128, 129. 

Lake Lucerne, too. 

Lake Ltigano, 152. 

Lake Lunghino, 134. 

Lake Limgren, 98. 

Lake Maggiore, 148. 

Lake Moesola, 131. 

Lake Morat, 45. 

Lake Neuchatel, 48. 

Lake Orta, 152. 

Lake Pilatus, 106. 

Lake St. Moritz, 136. 

Lake Sella, 126. 

Lake Sempach, no. 

Lake Sils, 136. 

Lake Silvaplana, 136. 

Lake Thun, 57. 

Lake Todtensee, 92. 

Lake Toma, 163. 

Lake Uri, 100, 119. 

Lake Varese, 147. 

Lake Walensee, 116. 

Lake Zng, 104, 109. 

Lake Zurich, in. 

"Lake of the Dead," 92. 

"Lake of the Four Forest 

Cantons," 100. 
Lallenkonig, Basle, 188. 
Lamarque wines, 27. 
Landskron Castle, Oppen- 

heim, 250. 
Landskron, cliff, 2>77- 
Laquinbach, brook, 85. 
Lauch River, 190. 
Lauenburg, village, 345. 
Laufen River, 184. 
Laurette, Countess, 360. 
Lausanne, 6, 10. 
Lausonium, Roman name of 

Lausanne, 10. 
Lauteraar Glacier, 93. 



Lauterbrunnen, village, 63. 

Lavater, John Caspar, Swiss 
Protestant minister, 115. 

Laveno, village, 147. 

Le Locle, village, 49. 

League of the Hanse Towns, 
409. 

League of the Rhenish Towns, 
280. 

Lecco, village, 141, 143. 

Leeghwater, Jan Adrianszoon, 
Dutch engineer, 473. 

Lek River, 434. 

Leo III., Pope, 409, 416, 438*. 

Leo IX., Pope, 190, 407. 

Leopold II., Duke of Austria, 
no. 

Leopold III., Duke of Austria, 
no. 

Lepontii, tribe, 30. 

Lepontine Alps, 30. 

Les Planches, Lake of Ge- 
neva, 22. 

Letter from Italy, 158. 

Leuk, village, 70, 71, 

Leuk River, 351. 

Lewis I., King of Germany, 
252. 

Lewis IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 282. 

Leyden, 465. 

Leyden Lake, 472. 

Lichtenthal, nunnery, Baden- 
Baden, 211. 

Liebfrauen-kirche (Church of 
Our Lady), Worms, 249. 

Liebfrauenkirche, Treves, 357, 

Liebfrauenmilch, famous 
wine, 249. 

Liebig, von, Justus, German 
chemist, 347. 

Liechtenstein, petty kingdom, 
169, 

Lied von dcr Glocke, 182. 

Limburg, ancient ruins, 192. 

Limburg, town, 345. 

Limmat River, 52, in. 



5o6 



INDEX. 



Lindau, town, 176. 

Lindenhof Castle, Zurich, 115. 

Linnaeus, Charles, Swedish 
botanist, 472. 

Linth Canal, 116. 

Linth River, iii, 116. 

Linz, village, 374. 

"Lion of Lucerne," 103. 

Lippe River, 429. 

Lippemund, Roman name of, 
Wesel, 430. 

Liro River, 132. 

Liro Valley, 132. 

Liszt, Franz, Hungarian mu- 
sician, 255. 

Little St. Bernard Pass, 28. 

Locarno, town, 148. 

Lohengrin, opera, 255, 433. 

Longfellow, Henry Wads- 
worth, American poet, 4, 80, 
143, 162, 290, 316, 382, 456. 

Lorch, village, 320. 

Lorsch, village, 251. 

Lothaire, Emperor of Ger- 
many, 251. 

Louis L (surnamed le Debon- 
naire and the Pious), King 
of France, 23, 197, 268, 289, 

325- 
Louis XIV., King of France, 

200, 204, 222, 236, 350, 360, 

369, 436, 441. 
Louis XV., King of France, 

206. 
Louis Philippe (surnamed the 

"Citizen King"), King of 

the French, 164. 
Louis IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 325. 
Louis, Landgrave of Thur- 

ingia, 347. 
Louis le Debonnaire, scchouis 

I. of France. 
Louis the Pious, sec Louis I. 

of France. 
Lousberg, Aix-la-Chapelle, 419. 

419. 



Lowenberg, mountain peak, 

385. 

Lower Hash, valley, 95. 

Lowerzer See, 118. 

Lucerna, Roman name of Lu- 
cerne, 102. 

Lucerne, loi. 

Ludlow, Edmund, English re- 
publican general, 22. 

Ludwig I., King of Germany^ 
262. 

Ludwig I., Duke of Hesse, 
252. 

Ludwig IV., Duke of Hesse, 

^53-. 
Ludwig, King of Bavaria, 256. 
Ludwigsburg, military depot 

and arsenal, 231. 
Ludwigshafen, suburb of 

Mannheim, 224. 
Lugano, town, 152. 
Luini, Bernardino, Italian 

painter, 154. 
Luino, village, 149, 154. 
Luizen Platz, Darmstadt, 252. 
Lurlei, the, 327. 
Luther, Martin, Protestant 

Church reformer, 247, 282, 

348. 
Luther Monument, Worms, 

248. _ 
Liitschine River, 60. 
Liitzelau, island, Lake Zurich, 

III. 
Lynden, von, Baron, 473. 
Lyskamm, mountain peak, y6. 

Maas delta, 453. 
Maassluis, town, 453. 
Macdonald, Etienne Jacques 

Joseph, French marshal, 

132. 
"MacMahon Tree," Worth, 

218. 
Madatsch, mountain peak, 139. 
Miigdeberg, volcanic peak, 

181. 



INDEX. 



507 



Maggia River, 149. 

Maieiiwang, mountain peak, 
92. 

Main River, 254, 256, 258, 2S9. 

Mainau, island, 177. 

Malberg, eminence. Ems, 343. 

Maliebaan, Utrecht, 443. 

Maloja Pass, 134, 138. 

Mangold, Jean, French cook, 
191. 

Mannheim, 223. 

Manzoni, Alessandro, Italian 
poet and novelist, 143. 

Marburg, town, 347. 

Marceau, Frangois Severin 
Desgraviers, French gen- 
eral, z^-]. 

Marciacum, Frankish name 
of Merzig, 350. 

Marcobrunnen, well, 291. 

Marcobrunner, wine, 291. 

Marie de Medicis, Queen of 
France, 401. 

Marien-Capelle, Wiirzburg, 
260. 

Marienberg, ridge, 360. 

Marienberg, Boppard, 337. 

Marienberg, fortress, Wiirz- 
burg, 261. 

Maritime Alps, 30. 

Marmont, de, Auguste Fred- 
eric Louis Viesse, French 
marshal, 439. 

Marsilius, defender of Co- 
logne, 410, 411. 

Martigny, 27. 

Martin V., Pope, 180. 

Mathildenhohe, hill, Darm- 
stadt, 253. 

Matter Visp River, 74. 

Matter Vispthal, valley, 74. 

Matterhorn, mountain peak, 
76. 

Maurice of Nassau, Prince of 
Orange, 433, 437, 459, 461. 

Mauritshuis, the Hague, 459. 

Mauvais Pas, 27, 35. 



Maxbrunnen, spring. Kissen- 
gen, 262. 

Maximilian I., Emperor of 
Germany, 201, 233, 262. 

Maximilian, Elector of Ba- 
varia, 258. 

Maximilian, Frederick, Elec- 
tor of Cologne, 394. 

Maximilian Fountain, Bam- 
berg, 258. 

Maximilian Platz, Bamberg, 
258. 

Maximin, Roman emperor, 25. 

Mayence, 279. 

Mazzarda, family of brigands, 

149. 

Meinrad of Sulgen, Count, 
112. 

Meiringen, 95. 

Melac, Count, French com- 
mander, 236. 

Melancthon, Philip, German 
Protestant reformer, 302. 

Melch Vale, 99. 

Melch Aa. River, 99. 

Melchior, one of the Magi, 
403. 

Melibocus, promontory, 
Lorsch, 252. 

Menaggio, village, 143. 

Mennelstein, eminence, 198. 

Mentel, Johann, early printer, 
205. 

Mer de Glace, 2>'7- 

Mera River, 132, 134, 138. 

Mercator, Gerard, Flemish 
geographer and mathema- 
tician, 427. 

Merwede River, 444. 

Merzig, town, 350. 

Metternich, von (Clemens 
Wenzel), Prince, Austrian 
diplomat, 294. 

Mettlach, town, 351. 

Meuse River, AAA- 

Michaelsberg, eminence, Bam- 
berg, 258. 



soS 



INDEX. 



Michaelskappelle, Lorsch, 251. 
Michailowna, Elisabeth, 

Duchess, 288. 
"Milk River," 142. 
Milligen, town, 436. 
Miltenberg, town, 264, 
]\Iittaghorn, mountain peak, 

Mittelheim, village, 292. 
Mittelzell, island of Richenau, 

181. 
Mittlehorn, mountain peak, 

64. 
Mochmiihl, town, 233. 
j\loesa River, 131. 
Mogontiacum, Roman name 

of Mayence, 279. 
Moltke, von, Helmuth Karl 

Bernard, Russian general, 

228. 
Mommsen, Theodor, German 

antiquary, 278. 
Monastery of Stuben, 361. 
Monch, mountain peak, 64. 
Monk, mountain peak, 62. 
Mons Brisiacus, Breisach. 191. 
Mons Jo vis, Roman name of 

Donnersberg, 250. 
Mont Blanc, 39. 
Mont Catogne, 21. 
Mont Joret, 6, 43. 
Montanvert, mountain peak, 

38. 
Montclair, promontory, 350. 
Monte Bisbino, 146. 
Monte Caprino, 154. 
Monte Generoso, 152, 156. 
Monte Grigna, 142. 
Monte Jove, 31. 
Monte Leone, 85. 
Monte Mottarone, 150. 
Monte Resegone, 143. 
Monte Rosa, 74, 76. 
Monte Salvatore, 152, 154. 
Montreux, Lake of Geneva, 

22. 
Montroyal, fortress, 360. 



Moosburg, Biebrich, 289. 

jMorat, village, 45, 46. 

Moravian Brothers, followers 
of Huss, 371. 

Moresnet, mining region, 420. 

Morgarten, village, no. 

Morge River, 21. 

Morges, watering-place, 12. 

Mort, Michel, hero, 303. 

Morters, village, 49. 

Moselkern, village, 362. 

Mosclla, 359. 

Aloselle River, 209, 351, 361. 

Mosenberg, extinct volcano, 
380. 

Mount Pilatus, 99, 105. 

Mouse Tower of Bingen, 306. 

Miihlebach, village, 90. 

Miilhausen, iS'9. 

Miilheim, suburb of Cologne, 
420. 

Miiller, von, Johannes, Swiss 
historian, 182. 

Miinchen-Gladbach, town, 427. 

Miinster, Basle, 186. 

Miinster-am-Stein, bathing- 
resort, 301. 

Murg, village, 117. 

Murg River, 184, 213, 

Murgthal, glen, 117. 

Miirren, hamlet, 64. 

Musee Rath, Geneva, 18. 

Mystenstein, rock, Lake Lu- 
cerne, 105. 

Nafels, village, 116. 
Nahe River, 289, 209, 303. 
Napoleon L, Emperor of 

France, 31, 54, 84, 151, 178, 

258, 266, 436, 485. 
Napoleon III, Emperor of 

France, 113, 180, 181, 350. 
Nasonga, Roman name of 

Nassau, 344. 
Nassau, town, 344. 
National Monument, the 

Hague, 462. 



INDEX. 



509 



Nauders, village, 138'. 

Nauheim, bathing-resort, 347. 

Neckar River, 196, 225. 

Neckarsteinach, village, 234. 

Necker, Jacques, Swiss finan- 
cier and prime minister of 
France, 13. 

Neidervvald, .eminence, 296. 

Nennig, village, 352. 

Neroberg, eminence, Wies- 
baden, 287 

Neu Katzenelnbogen, castle 
ruins, t,2)^. 

Neuchatel, 48. 

Neue Residenz, Bamberg, 257. 

Neuenahr, village, 375. 

Neumagen, village, 360. 

Neumiinster, Wiirzburg, 260. 

Neuss, town, 426. 

Neustadt, town, 218. 

Neuwied, town, 371. 

NibcliingciiUed, 248, 384. 

Nibclungcn-Ring, opera, 256. 

Nicolaithal, valley, 74. 

Nicolausberg, Wiirzburg, 261. 

Niebuhr, Barthold Georg, 
German historian and critic, 

395, 469- 
Niederbauen, mountain peak, 

120. 
Niederlahnstein, town, 340. 
Niederwerth, island, 371. 
Nierstein, wine district, 251. 
Niesen, mountain peak, 58. 
Nieuwe Waterweg, 449, 453. 
Nollich Castle, Lorch, 321. 
Nonnenwerth, island, 380. 
Noord Canal, 447. 
Noordereiland, 448. 
Noordwyk, seacoast resort, 

484. 
Noordzee Kanaal, 475. 
Noric Alps, 30. 
Norton, Caroline Elizabeth 

Sarah, English writer, 309. 
Notker, learned German 

monk, 174. 



Nouvclle Heloisc, 22. 
Novesium, Roman fortress, 

426. 
Noviodunum, Roman colony, 

12. 
Noviomagus, Roman name of 

Neumagen, 359. 
Niirburg, mountain peak, 379. 
Nymegen, town, 437. 

Obere Nase, promontory, 119. 

Oberhalbstein, valley, 133. 

Oberlahnstein, town, 339. 

Oberlin, Jean Frederic, French 
philanthropist and reformer, 
206. 

Oberstein, town, 299. 

Oberwald, village, 90. 

Oberwerth, island, 341. 

Oberwessel, village, 325. 

Observatory, Mont Blanc, 41. 

Ochlberg, mountain peak, 385. 

Octodurum, Roman name of 
Martigny, 27. 

Odilienberg, mountain range, 
198. 

Odilienbrunnen, miraculous 
spring, I9c5. 

CEnus, Roman name of the 
Inn River, 134. 

Oestrich, town, 292. 

Offenbach, town, 267. 

Oldenbarneveld, van, John, 
Grand Pensionary of Hol- 
land, 461. 

Oos River, 208. 

Oppenheim, town, 250. 

Ortler, mountain peak, 139. 

Otho I, (surnamed the Great), 
Emperor of Germany, 113. 

Otho III., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 417. 

Otho of Laurenburg, Count, 

344- 

Otto II., Bishop, 257, 258. 

Otto IV., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 257. 



510 



INDEX. 



Ouchy, Lausanne, 12. 
Oude Kerk, Delft, 454. 
Oude-Maas River, 447. 
Oude Rhyn River, 434. 
Oude Trecht, Roman name of 

Utrecht, 440. 
Ova d'Oen, source of the 

River Inn, 136. 

Paglino, village, 86. 
Palace of Coblentz, 366. 
Palace of Konigsberg, 423. 
Palace of the Prince of Wied, 

Neuwied, 371. 
Pallanza, town, 148, 150. 
Pandur, spring, Kissingen, 

262. 
Paracelsus, Swiss alchemist, 

137- 

Paradis, Mile., Alpine tourist, 
40. 

"Paradise, Hell, and Purga- 
tory," painting, 422. 

Paradiso, suburb of Lugano, 

154- 
Parsifal, opera, 256. 
"Passion," fresco, Lugano, 

154- 

Pates de fois gras, 202. 

Paulus Church, Worms, 249. 

Paushuizen, Utrecht, 443. 

Peace of Ryswyck, 457. 

"Peasants' War," 233. 

Pennine Alps, 29. 

Pepys, Samuel, English gen- 
tleman, gossip and connois- 
seur, 454. 

Perkeo, court jester, 239. 

Pescara, gorge, Lake of Lu- 
gano, 155. 

Pestalozzi, Johann Hcinrich, 
Swiss teacher and educa- 
tional reformer, 51. 

Peter, Elector of Aspclt, 282. 

Peter, Count of Savoy, 23, 27. 

Petersbcrg, mountain peak, 
385. 



Petershausen, town, 180 

Petrarch, Francesco, Italian 
poet, 411. 

Pfafers, village, 171. 

Pfaffendorfer Hohe, Aster- 
stein, 370. 

Philip the Good, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 50, 462. 

Philip the Magnanimous, 
Landgrave of Hesse, 221, 
248, 348. 

Philip of Bolanden, 306. 

Philip of Hohenstaufen, Em- 
peror, 2,77- 

Philip (Duke of Suabia), 
Emperor of Germany, 257. 

Philip von Hohenfels, German 
brigand, 319. 

Philosophenweg, Heidelberg, 

235- 

Pichler, Joseph, Alpine tour- 
ist, 140. 

Pierre a Niton, rock. Lake of 
Geneva, 17. 

Pigalle, Jean Baptiste, French 
sculptor, 206. 

Pilgrim Fathers, 452. 

Pissevache, waterfall, 26. 

Pitt, William, English states- 
man, 242. 

Pius II., Pope, 185. 

Piz Bernia, mountain peak, 

137. 
Piz Julier, mountain peak, 

133- 
Piz Rosatsch, mountain peak, 

137. 
Pizzo Lunghino, mountain 

peak, 134. 
Pizzo Rotondo, mountain 

peak, 122. 
"Plains of Switzerland," 43. 
Plancus, Lucius, Munatius, 

Roman politician, 187. 
Plcctrudis, wife of Pepin, 407. 
Plein, the Hague, 460. 
Plessur River, 164. 



INDEX. 



511 



Pliny the Elder, Roman nat- 
uralist, 29, 140, 145, 285. 

Pliny the Younger, Latin au- 
thor and orator, 145, 146. 

Po River, ^y. 

Pollux, mountain peak, 76. 

Pont de Gotterou, Freiburg, 

44. 
Pont du Montblanc, Geneva, 

14. 
Ponte, village, 134, 138'. 
Pontresina, village, 137. 
"Pope's Home," Utrecht, 443. 
Poppelsdorf, village, 394. 
Poppelsdorfer Allee, Bonn, 

394- 
Poppo, Archbishop, 355. 
Porta Nigra, Treves, 354, 
Porta Praitoria, Aosta, 31. 
Potter, Paul, Dutch painter, 

459. 
Prinzenhof, Cleves, 433. 
Prisoner of Chillon, 12, 23. 
Promenade du Lac, Geneva, 

14. 
Ptolemy, Greek geographer, 
440. 

Quai du Montblanc, Geneva, 

14. 
"Quakers of Germany," 372. 
Quint, village, 359. 
Quirinuskirche, Neuss, 426. 

Racoczy, spring, Kissingen, 

262. 
Radbod, King of the Frisians, 

51- 
Ragatz, watering-place, 170. 

Rapp, Jean, French general, 

Rapperswil, village, iii. 
Rappoltsweiler, town, 197. 
Rastatt, fortress, 216. 
Rath, Simon, Swiss officer, 18. 
"Red Field," historic site, 197. 
Rcgnitz River, 256. 



Reichenau, village, 163. 

Reichenberg Castle, :iZ3- 

Reichswald, forest, 433. 

Rcisc am Rlicin, 305. 

Remagen, village, 37s. 

Rembrandt, Paul, Dutch 
painter, 253, 450, 459, 470. 

Rensselaer, Mr., Alpine tour- 
ist, 40, 

Rescia, village, 155. 

Residenz-Platz, Wiirgburg, 

259- 

Rethel, Alfred, German his- 
torical painter, 418. 

Reuse River, 49, 51. 

Reuss River, 99, 121. 

Rhaeti, ancient people, 4, 30, 
164. 

Rhsetian Alps, 30. 

Rheineck Castle, 373. 

Rheinfall, 182. 

Rheinfelden, fortress-town, 
184. 

Rheinfels, St. Goar, 331. 

Rheingau, district, 290. 

Rheinwald Glacier, 163. 

Rhenen, town, 439. 

Rhens. town, 338, 

Rhine, delta, 434. 

Rhine River, 162, 246, 288, 316. 

Rhone Glacier, 89. 

Rhone River, 8, 19, 27, 89. 

Rbynland, district, 472. 

Richard, M., watch manufac- 
turer, 49. 

Richard von Greiffenklau, 
Elector of Treves, 356. 

Richard Wagner Strasse, 
Bayreuth, 255. 

Richard Wagner Theatre, 
Bayreuth, 253. 

Richenau, island, t8i. 

Riemenschneider, T i 1 m a n, 
German sculptor, 259, 260, 
261. 

Rifi"elberg, plateau, 75. 

Rigi, mountain peak, 100, T07. 



512 



INDEX. 



Rigodulum, Roman name of 
Riol, 359. 

Rigomagus, Roman name of 
Remagen, 375. 

Rinderhorn, mountain peak, 
69. 

Ring-Strasse, Cologne, 409. 

Riol, village, 359. 

Rittersturz, Coblentz, 367. 

'■Robber knights," 234. 

Robbers, 228. 

Robinson, John English dis- 
senter, 471. 

Rochusberg, Bingen, 304. 

Rochuscapelle, Bingen, 304. 

"Rock of the Dragon,'' 384. 

Roderberg, cliff, 380. 

Rohan, de (Henri), Duke, 
French Huguenot chief, 17. 

Roland the Paladin, 381. 

Rolandseck, village, 380. 

Rolle, 12. 

Roman amphitheatre, Treves, 

357- 
Romanshorn, town, 176. 
Rorschach, town, 176. 
Rosengarten. "^Vorms, 250. 
Rosenhohc, .."...., Darmstadt, 

253- 
Rosenhorn, mountain peak, 64. 
Rossberg, eminence, 118. 
Rossbodenhorn, m o u n t a i n 

peak, 85. 
Rossel, the, Niederwald, 298. 
Rossum, von, ]\Iaarten, Dutch 

general, 444. 
Rothhorn, mountain peak, 96. 
Rothschild family, origin of 

270. 
Rotte River, 448. 
Rotterdam, 448. 
Rottland, vineyard, 296. 
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, Swiss 

philosopher, 14, 16, 17, 18, 

22. 
Rovcredo, village, T30. 
Rubeacum, Roman name of 

Rufach, 190. 



Rubens, Peter Paul, Flemish 
painter, 253, 408, 422, 459. 

Riidesheim, vineyard, 296. 

Rudolph (of Hapsburg), Em- 
peror of Germany, 51, 192, 
204, 22Z, 319. 

Rue du Montblanc, Geneva, 

14- 
Rufach, village, 190. > 

Ruhr River, 427. * 

Ruhroit, town, 428. ' 

Rupert, Count Palatine, Em- 
peror of Germany, 239, 240, 

251, 339- 

Ruppertsburg, Bingen, 305. 

Ruthard, Archbishop of May- 
ence, 294. 

Riitli , patriotic corner-stone 
of the Swiss Confederation, 
105. 

Ruyter, de, Alichael Adria- 
anzoon, Dutch admiral, 464- 

Ryswyck, 457. 

Saalberg, Roman fortress, 278.' 

Saar River, 299, 349. 

Saarbriick, town, 350. 

Saarlouis, fortress, 350. 

Saasser Visp River, 74. 

Saasthal, valley, 74. 

Sachenhausen, town, 267. 

Sackingen, village, 184. 

Sacred ]\Iount of Orta, 152. 

St. Augustine, church of, Zu- 
rich, 115. 

St. Bartholomew's Cathedral 
of, Frankfort, 273. 

St. Bernard, founder of the 
establishments of the Great 
and Little St. Bernard, 28. 

St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 292. 

St. Bernard dogs, 2^2, 33. 

St. Bernardino, missionary, 

I3T- 
St. Boniface, missionary, 280. 
St. Burkhard, church of, 

Wiirzburg, 261. 
St. Candidus, missionary. 25. 
St. Castor, missionary, 362. 



INDEX. 



513 



St. Catharine, church of, Op- 

penheim, 250. 
St. Clement, martyr, 318. 
St. EHzabeth, 347. 
St. Engelbert, 401, 404. 
St. Francis of Assisi, chapels 

of. Mount of Orta, 152. 
St. Gallen, town, 173. 
St. Callus, apostle of Switzer- 
^ land, 173. 
St, Goar, hermit, 329. 
St. Goar, village, 329. 
St. Goarhausen, village, 329. 
St. Gengolph, Lake of Geneva, 

21. 
St. Georgen, town, 214. 
St. Gotthard, mountain group, 

122. 
St. Gotthard Railway, 118, 

123. 
St. Helena, Empress, 356, 393, 

403, 407. 
St. Jakob, chapel of, Mor- 

garten, no. 
St. Johann, suburb of Saar- 
^ briick, 350. 
St. Kilian, church of, Heil- 

bronn, 232. 
St. Killian, martyr, 260. 
St. Kolonat, martyr, 260. 
St. Leodegar, patron saint of 

Lucerne, 102. 
St. Ludvinus, 351. 
St, Martin, Cathedral of, 

Mayence, 281. 
St. Martin, church of, Colmar, 

191. 
St. Martin, church of, Vevey, 

22. 
St. Maurice, patron saint of 

Austria, 25. 
St. Maurice, town, 25. 
St. Mauritius, patron saint of 

Lucerne, 102. 
St. Meinrad, church of, Ein- 

siedeln, 112. 
St. Michael, church of, Bam- 
berg, 258. 
33 



St. Moritz, 137. 

St. Nicholas, cathedral of 
Freiburg, 45. 

St. Nicholas, village, 74. 

St. Nikolaus von der Fliie, 
patron saint of canons en- 
closing Lake Lucerne, 99. 

Ste. Odile, patron saint of Al- 
sace, 198. 

St. Paullin, Treves, 358. 

St, Peter, church of, Zurich, 
115. 

St. Quirinus, patron saint of 

Neuss, 426. 
St. Rhemy, 31. 
St. Roch, missionary, 304. 
St. Salvator, bell, Utrecht, 

442- . 
St, Suitbertus, Irish saint, 

423- 

St. Theodore, missionary, 25. 

St. Thomas, church of, Strass- 
burg, 206. 

St. Totnan, martyr, 260. 

St. Ursula, pilgrim, 405. 

St. Victor, missionary, 25. 

St. Werner, miracle concern- 
ing, 323. 

St. Willibrord, Irish mission- 
ary, 432, 440. 

Salanfe River, 26. 

Salodurum, Roman name of 
Soleure, 50. 

Saltine River, 84, 

Salvan, 35. 

Salvatore, village, 157. 

Salzburgkopf, mountain peak, 
342. 

Samaden, village, 138. 

San Bernardino Pass, 130, 131. 

San Bernardino, village, 131. 

Sargens, village, 117. 

Sarine River, 44. 

Sarnen, village, 99. 

Sarner See, 98. 

Sasso del Ferro, eminence, 
147. 



'514 



INDEX. 



Sauer River, 218. 

Sauerburg, castle, 320. 

Sauer-thal, valley, 318. 

Sanssure, de, Horace Bene- 
dict, Swiss naturalist, 39, 40. 

Savonarola, Girolamo, Italian 
reformer and pulpit ©rator, 
248. 

Saxe (Hermann Maurice), 
Count of, Saxon general, 
206. 

Sayn River, 371. 

Scaliger, Joseph Justus, phi- 
lologist, 469. 

Schadow, von, Friedrich Wil- 
helm, German painter, 422. 

Schaffhausen, town, 182. 

Schaumburg, village, 345. 

Schawanenburg, Cleves, 432. 

Scheffel, von, Joseph Victor, 
German poet and novelist, 
184. 

Schelling, von, Friedrich Wil- 
helm Joseph, German phil- 
osopher, 170. 

Schenkenschenz, fortress, 436. 

Scheuten, Dutch navigator, 
484. 

Scheveningen, watering-place, 
464. 

Schie River, 452, 

Schiedam, 453. 

Schiller, von, Johann Chris- 
toph Friedrich, national 
poet of Germany, 104, 105, 
120, 121, 123, 182, 224, 227, 
228, 229, 231, 271. 

Schilling, Prof., sculptor, 297. 

Schlengenbad, spa, 288. 

Schloss Arenfels, 374. 

Schloss, Aschaffenburg, 265. 

Schloss Burg, 423. 

Schloss Cronberg, 278. 

Schloss Eltz, 362. 

Schloss, Homburg, 277. 

Schloss Johannisberg, 294. 

Schloss Ockenfels, 374. 



Schlossberg, eminence, Baden- 
Baden, 209. 
"Schnapps," Holland gin, 453. 
Schneeberg, mountain peak, 

255- 

Schoffer, Peter, associate of 
Gutenberg, 271, 283. 

Schomberg, von, Friedrich 
Armand Hermann, Protest- 
ant military commander, 
326. 

Schonberg Castle, Oberwesel, 
326. 

Schonbornsprudel, Kissingen, 
263. 

Schongauer, Martin, German 
painter, 190, 191. 

Schraudolph, Johann, German 
historical painter, 222. 

Schreckhorn, mountain peak, 
64. 

Schumann, Robert, German 
musician and composer, 395. 

Schwalbach, watering-p lace, 
288. 

Schwanenthurm, Cleves, 432. 

Schwartz, Berthold, German 
chemist and F r a n c i s c an 
monk, 193. 

Schwarze Thurm, Roman con- 
struction, Brugg, 51. 

Schwarzhorn, mountain ridge, 

97- 
Schwetzingen, town, 225. 
Schwilgue, M., builder of the 

Strassburg Cathedral clock, 

205. 
Schwyz, village, 119, 120. 
Schynige Platte, eminence, 63. 
"Sea of Ice,'' 37. 
Seelisberg, village, 120. 
Seez River, 117. 
Sentiacum, Roman name of 

Sinzig, 375. 
Serrig, town, 351. 
"Seven Mountains," 38-1., 



INDEX. 



515 



"Seven Virgins," Oberwesel, 
326. 

Sibylla Augusta, margravine 
of Baden, 212, 

Sickingen, von, Franz, robber- 
knight, 301, 351- 

Sidney, Sir Philip, English 
gentleman, soldier and au- 
thor, 439. 

"Sieben Jungfrauen," tradi- 
tion of, 326. 

Siebengebirge, mountain 
range, 384. 

Sieg River, 395. 

Siegburg, village, 396. 

Siegesthurm, war tower, Bay- 
reuth, 256. 

Siegfried, Archbishop of Co- 
logne, 375. 

Siegfried, character in the 
Nibelungcnlied, 2^2, 386, 

Sienne River, 72. 

Sierck, village, 352. 

Sierre, 72,. 

Sigmund (Sigismund), Em- 
peror of Germany, 20, 179. 

Signal de Bougy, mountain 
peak, 12. 

Sihl River, 114. 

Silvaplana, village, 133. 

Simeon, hermit, 354. 

Simme River, 58. 

Simmenthal, valley, 58. 

Simplon Pass, 84. 

Simplon tunnel, 86. 

Simplon, village, 85. 

Shizig, town, 375. 

Sion, 72. 

Siren of the Lurlei, 328. 

Sobemheim, town, 300. 

Sobieski, Polish king, 340. 

Soden, mineral spring resort, 
278. 

Soleure, 50. 

Solingen, 424. 

"Solingen blades," 424. 



Sooneck, castle, 320. 

Sorrozcs of JVcrther, 346. 

Southey, Robert, English au- 
thor, 306. 

Spaarne River, 476. 

Spalen Thor, Basle, 188. 

Spessart, forest district, 263. 

Speyer, 220. 

Speyerbach River, 218. 

Spicheren, battle of, 350. 

Spiez, 59. 

Spinoza, Benedict, philoso- 
pher, 462. 

Spitalmette, plain, 69. 

Spliigen Pass, 131. 

Spliigen, village, 131. 

Stadel, art patron, 275. 

Stael, de (Anne Louise Ger- 
maine Necker), Madame, 
French author, 13. 

Stahleck Castle, Bacharach, 
322. 

Stair (James Dalrymple), 
Lord, 469. 

Stalden, village, 73. 

Staubbach, cataract, 63. 

Stauffacher, von, Werner, 
Swiss patriot, 105, 118. 

Steamboats, first appearance 
of, on the Rhine, 167. 

Steeger River, 322. 

Steen, Jan, Dutch painter, 459, 
470. 

Steengracht, Baron, 462. 

Stein, town, 181. 

Stein, von (Heinrich Fried- 
rich Karl), Baron, Prussian 
statesman, 345. 

Steinach River, 174. 

Steinachs, race, 234. 

Steinberg, vineyard, 292. 

Steinen, village, 118. 

Stelvio Pass, 139. 

Stelvio, village, 139. 

Sternberg, mountain peak, 

385, 
Stieltjes, Dutch engineer, 449. 



5i6 



INDEX. 



Stifthauger Church, Wnrz- 

burg, 261, 
Stiftskirche, Aschaffen burg, 

265. 
Stilfs, village, 139. 
Stockalper Chateau, Brig, 84. 
Stockalper, Kaspar, merchant, 

84. 

Stockalper Tower, Gondo, 86. 

Stockhorn, mountain peak, 58. 

Stolberg, town, 414. 

Stolzenfels, rock, Capellen, 
340. 

Storks, 201. 

Strait of Lavena, 153. 

Strassburg, 200. 

Stresa, town, 148, 150. 

Stuttgart, 226. 

Suermondt, Bartholomew, pa- 
tron of art, 419. 

Sulzer Belchen, mountain 
peak, 190. 

Suvaroff, Alexander Vasilie- 
vitch, Russian general, 128'. 

Swiss Confederation, origin 
of, 5- 

Swiss, mode of life, 60. 

Swiss Valley, 332. 

Switzerland, topography, 6. 

Sysfema Naturae, 472. 

Tacitus, Caius Cornelius, Ro- 
man historian, 482. 

Tamina River, 170. 

Tannhacuscr, opera, 255. 

Tashhorn, mountain peak, yy. 

Tasman, Abel Janssen, Dutch 
navigator, 484. 

Tassilo, Duke of Bavaria, 252. 

Taunus, plateau. 246, 276. 

Tell, William, Swiss hero and 
patriot, 98, 104, 105, 123, 

154- 
Tail's Chapel, Lake Lucerne, 

104. 
Tell's Platte, Lake Lucerne, 

104. 



Templehof, Boppard, 2>Z7- 

Teniers, David, Flemish 
painter, 459. 

Terwen, Jan, Dutch wood 
carver, 447. 

Tete Noire, 34. 

Teuchsess, Gebhard, Arc n- 
bishop of Cologne, 385, 392. 

Teufelsmiinster, mountain 
peak, 120. 

Texel, island, 481. 

Thackeray, William ]\Iake- 
peace, English novelist and 
humorist, 283. 

The Decline and Fall of the 
Roman Empire, 11. 

The Hague, 457. _ 

"The Madonna with the Fam- 
ily of Burgomaster ]Meyer 
of Basle," painting, Darm- 
stadt, 253. 

"The Union of the Country," 
painting, 450. 

"Thebain Legion," Christian 
martyrs, 25, 407. 

Theodule Glacier, 74. 

Theodulf, Bishop, 357. 

Theophano, Byzantine, em- 
press, 407. 

Thiergarten, Cleves, 432. 

Thiers, Louis Adolphe, Presi- 
dent of the French Repub- 
lic, 367. 

Thonon, bathing-town, 20. 

Thorwaldsen, Albert Bertel, 
Danish sculptor, 103, 143, 
283. 

Three Kings, 401. 

Thun, village. 57. 

Thurnberg Castle, 332. 

Thuron Castle, 2)^^- 

Thusis, village, 132, 169. 

Ticino River, 30. 

Tiefencastell. 133. 

Tilly, von, Johann Tzerklas, 
military commander, 236, 
340. 



INDEX. 



S17 



Tirano, village, 140. 

Todi, mountain peak, 116. 

Todtenkopf, Alpine peak, 192. 

Torno, village, 146. 

Torre, Napoleone della, leader 
of the Torriani, 147. 

Theodulf, Bishop, 357. 

Tosa River, 86, 152. 

Toys, manufacture of, 96. 

Trabener Berg, 360. 

Trafoi, village, 139. 

Trajan, Roman Emperor, 358. 

Trajectum ad Rhenum, Ro- 
man name of Utrecht, 440. 

Tremezzina, district in Lom- 
bardy, 145. 

Tremezzo, village, 145. 

Tresa River, 149, 152. 

Treves, 352. 

Triberg, village, 214. 

Trient River, 26. 

Trier, German name of 
Treves, 352. 

Trinkhalle, Wiesbaden, 287. 

Tromp, Martin, Dutch admi- 
ral, 455- 

"Tulip craze," 480. 

Turenne, de Henri, French 
general, 207, 252, 436, 437, 

Turicum, Roman name of Zu- 
rich, 113. 

Tusaun, ancient Roman town, 
169. 

Tyndall, John, Irish physicist, 
78, 80. 

Ubii, German tribe, 410. 

Ueberlinger See, 177. 

Uesbach River, 361. 

Ufnau, island, Lake Zurich, 
III. 

Uhland, Johann Ludwig, Ger- 
man lyric poet, 212. 

Ultrajectum, Roman name of 
Utrecht, 440. 

University of Basle, 185. 

University of Bonn, 393. 



University of Freiburg, 194. 
University of Geneva, 18. 
University of Giessen, 346. 
University of Heidelberg, 240. 
University of Leyden, 469., 
University of Marburg, 348. 
University of Utrecht, 443. 
University of Wiirzburg, 2&1. 
Untere Nase, promontory, 119. 
Unteraar Glacier, 93. 
Upper Hash, valley, 95. 
Upper Engadine, 135. 
Upper Rheingau, 172. 
U r i-Rothstock, m o u t a i n 

peak, 121. 
Urner Loch, 128. 
Urner See, 100, 119. 
Ute, Queen, character in the 

Nibelungenlied, 252. 
Utrecht, 440. 



Vaduz, village, 169. 

Val Bregaglia, 132, 134, 138. 

Val Cuvio, 147. 

Val Leventina, gorge, 129. 

Val Tremola, gorge, 129. 

Val Valtellina, 140. 

Val de Travers, 49. 

Vale of Chamounix, 34, 39. 

Vale of Glarus, 116. 

Vale of the Eau Noire, 35. 

Valeria, 'j:>). 

Valkhof, Nymegen, 438. 

Valle d'Ossola, 86. 

Van Dyck, Anthony, Flemish, 

painter, 459. 
Van der Werff, Burgomaster, 

468, 471. 
Vangiones, tribe, 246. 
Varenna, village, 142. 
Vauban, de, Sebastian, French 

military engineer, 201, 350, 

369. 

Vecht River, 434. 
Vecht-see, ancient name of 

Lake Morat, 46. 



5i8 



INDEX. 



Velcle, van den, Jan, Dutch 

painter, 459. 
Veluwe, region, 438, 
Vernayaz, 35. 
Vetliberg, eminence, Zurich, 

115- 
Vevey, 21. 
Yeveyse River, 21. 
Via Mala, 169. 
Vianen, town, 440. 
Vibiscus, Roman name of 

Vevey, 21. 
Victor Emmanuel 11. , first 

King of Italy, 149. 
Victoria, Queen of England, 

393-. 
Victoriaberg, Remagen, 375. 

Vierwaldstatter See, local 
name of Lake Lucerne, 100, 
119. 

Villa Carlotta, Cadenabbia, 

143- 
Villa Pliniona, Bay of Molina, 

145- 
Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, 143. 
Villingen, town, 214. 
Vindonissa, Helvetian town, 

52. 
Virgil, Latin poet, 140. 
Virgin, mountain peak, 62. 
Visconti, Ottone, Archbishop 

of Milan, 147. 
Visp River, 'j'^. 
Visp, village, ^^i- 
Vitznau, village, 119. 
Vlaardingen, village, 453. 
Vlieland, island, 481. 
Vogelweide, Walther von der, 

German poet, 259, 260. 
Volta, Alessandro, Italian nat- 
ural philosopher, 146. 
Voltaire, de, Frangois Marie, 

French writer, 11, 13, 16, 17, 

204. 
Vorder Rhine, 163. 
Vordcr River, 164. 
Vordersberg, Riidesheim, 296. 



Vosavia, Roman name of 

Oberwesel, 326. 
Vreeswyk, town, 440. 
Vyver, the Hague, 458. 

Waal River, 434. 

Wacht am Rhein, 427. 

Wagner, Richard, German 
composer, 255, 282, 433. 

Waldrus, Petrus, religious re- 
former, 248. 

Walenstadt, village, 117. 

War Monument, Freiburg, 194. 
194. 

Warriors' Monument, Aix-la- 
Chapelle, 419. 

Wasen, village, 124. 

Wasserkirche, Zurich, 115. 

Wasserthurm, Lucerne, 102. 

Watchmaking industry, 49. 

Water Tower, Lucerne, 102. 

Watering-places, 71, 137, 139, 
170, 208, 215, 262, 285, 288, 
301, 302, 343, 347, 375, 419, 
432, 464, 479. 

Weber Inn, Bacharach, 323. 

Weesen, village, 117. 

Weggis, village, 119. 

Weiss River, 196. 

Weissenburg, village, 218. 

Weissenstein, mountain emi- 
nence, 52. 

Weissenthurm, town, 371. 

Weisshorn, mountain peak, 
76, 80. 

Weissmainquelle, spring, 255. 

Welmicher, brook, 322. 

Wenceslaus, Clemens, Elec- 
tor of Treves, 353, 366. 

Wenzel, Emperor of Ger- 
many, 339. 

Werdcr, von, August, Prus- 
sian general, 195. 

Werner, Baron, 123. 

Wernhcr, Bishop, 203. 

Wesel River, 325. 

Wesel, town, 430. 



INDEX. 



519 



Westerwald, plateau, 342. 

Wetterhorn, mountain peak, 
64. 

Wetzlar, town, 346. 

Weyden, van der, Roger 
Flemish painter, 459. 

"Whey-resorts," 173. 

Whymper, Mr., Alpine tour- 
ist, 78. 

Widerholt, Wurtumberg com- 
mandant, 182. 

Wiesbaden, mineral springs 
resort, 277, 285. 

Wildbad, mineral springs re- 
sort, 230. 

Wilhelm, Karl, German com- 
poser, 427. 

Wilhelmina, Queen of Hol- 
land, 462. 

Wilhelmina (Sophia), Mar- 
gravine of Bayreuth, 256. 

Willems-Park, the Hague, 
462. 

William I., King of Prussia 
and Emperor of Germany, 
217, 226, 229, 272, 275, 27S, 
285, 286, 297, 343, 366, 399, 
422, 428. 

William H., King of Prussia 
and Emperor of Germany, 

363- 

William I., (the Silent) of 
Nassau, Prince of Orange, 
454, 455, 460, 462, 467. 

William HI., King of Eng- 
land, 446, 447, 459. 

William, Count of Holland, 
458. 

William, Duke of Bavaria, 
258. 

William, Elector of Hesse 
Cassel, 270. 

William Frederick, King of 
Holland, 463. 

William Tell, 104, 120, 123. 

Willigis, Archbishop, 303. 



Winkel, village, 292. 
Winkelried, von, Arnold, 

Swiss patriot, no. 
Wisper River, 318. 
Wittekind, Saxon chief, 414. 
Wolfach, watering-place, 215. 
Wolfbach River, 215. 
Wolkenberg, mountain peak, 

385. 
Wood Carving School, Brienz, 

96. 
Wooden Tower, Mayence, 

285. 
Worms, 246. 
Worth, village, 218. 
Wrede, Karl Philipp, German 

field-marshal, 266. 
Wiilpelsberg, mountain-spur, 

Wupper River, 420. 
Wiirzburg, 259. 
Wycliffe, John, English re- 
ligious reformer, 179, 248, 

Xanten, town, 431. 
Y, polder of the, 475, 
Yssel River, 434, 482. 
Ysselmonde, island, 447. 

Zahringen (Berthold von), 

Count, 53, 54, 56. 
Zandvoort, watering-place, 

479- 

Zermatt, village, 74. 

Zeyst, village, 440. 

Zihl River, 50. 

Zmutthal, mountain glen, 75. 

Zschokke, Johann Heinrich 
Daniel, German writer, 50. 

Zug, 109. 

Zurich, 113. 

Zuricher See, in. 

Zuyder Zee, 481. 

Zwingli, Swiss religious re- 
former, 114, 115, T16. 

Zwillinge, mountain peak, 76. 



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